Monica Jackson
NASA held a two-day meeting in Seattle last week to inform commercial, academic and government organizations of the space agency’s plans to develop an urban air mobility ecosystem.
More than 400 representatives from the public and private sectors engaged in discussions about the UAM Grand Challenge, which is scheduled to officially launch in late 2020, NASA said Wednesday.
The agency looks to demonstrate the potential of piloted or remotely piloted aircraft to carry adult passengers within a simulated and complex urban environment.
The Federal Aviation Administration will collect information from the activities to provide regulatory guidelines on the safety, certification and airspace integration of UAM operations.
Interested parties have until Nov. 16 to express their interest to NASA about participating in the Grand Challenge.
The announcement comes after two agency-commissioned studies, conducted by Booz Allen Hamilton and Crown Consulting, supported the feasibility of the UAM could potentially support business operations.
The reports projected as many as 500M flights a year will facilitate package deliveries starting in 2030 and another 750M flights will support air metro services annually.
