Matthew Nelson
Wisk and Alaka’i Technologies have been selected to join a NASA project aimed at evaluating the safety and readiness of autonomous aerial systems for urban air mobility operations.
Both companies will build vertical-takeoff-and-landing air taxis for a series of flight tests and assessments as part of the Advanced Air Mobility National Campaign, the space agency said Tuesday.
Wisk seeks to demonstrate a safety-first autonomous flight approach with an all-electric air vehicle, while Alaka’i’s plans to showcase new technology via a hydrogen fuel cell-powered aircraft.
"These partnerships are the cornerstone of our data collection that will support standardization, certification and eventually the operational approval for safe and scalable UAM operations," said Davis Hackenberg, NASA's AAM mission integration manager.
The agency will facilitate an integrated dry run next month that will feature a helicopter to function as a surrogate UAM platform to help inform flight test data baseline development.
NASA added it will work with Joby Aviation to carry out a developmental test of the company's air taxi design next year and design create flight scenarios as part of preparations for the NC-1 event slated to happen sometime in 2022.
