Airspace Operations and Safety

The Airspace Operations and Safety Program (AOSP) focuses on enabling safe, sustainable, and efficient aviation operations to benefit the flying public and keep U.S. global competitiveness. Its vision is to transform aviation into a digital, federated, and service-oriented architecture that supports all airspace users. AOSP drives the integration of emerging technologies and ensures access for new entrants, particularly those that include increasingly autonomous systems. Safety, efficiency, and resilience are attributes of the systems that are enabled by the AOSP agenda. AOSP's approach emphasizes several key areas: efficient operations, seamless integration of varied and emerging aviation systems, and advanced prognostic safety management for real-time decision-making. It also focuses on system-level autonomy and its verification and validation for vehicle command, control, and contingency management. By addressing future challenges in traffic variety, density, and operational complexity, AOSP aims to improve the National Airspace System (NAS) through scalable capabilities developed in collaboration with stakeholders. These efforts seek to reduce airline delays, lower operating costs, and enhance passenger experience. Proposals should address one of the following needs related to airspace operations and safety: Future Aviation Safety Framework The aviation industry is moving toward increasingly automated and autonomous systems, requiring new safety management and assurance capabilities to maintain or improve safety. Research is needed to: Assess future automation modes and their effects on pilot behavior, and advance human-machine interface design for pilots, remote pilots, and air traffic controllers. Develop evaluation criteria and assurance frameworks for AI/ML and non-deterministic systems. Model fatigue, workload, and workflows for all aviation actors. Advance anomaly detection and predictive safety tools. Address safety challenges in transitioning from single-aircraft piloting to multi-aircraft operations with high automation. Airspace Management Automation Airline and Air Traffic Management operations need scalable, interoperable automation to replace fragmented, voice based, controller dependent workflows. Research is required to define and validate the requirements that enable a paradigm shift from tactical control to strategic traffic flow and trajectory management, improving efficiency, productivity, and resilience. Design digital information exchange protocols that reduce reliance on voice communication and enable seamless coordination between airlines, ATC, and decision-support systems. Transition concepts from analysis to practical implementation, ensuring prototypes integrate effectively with NASA's future airspace system vision and enable scalable, situational awareness for real time coordination. Safe Routine Operations of Increasingly Automated Aircraft Commercial aviation and new entrants are adopting digital, automated, and resilient operations. Key challenges include increasing operational complexity and ensuring safety as automation assumes greater control. Research areas include: Digital clearances and reroutes for improved accuracy and efficiency. Pilot-supervised surface automation with predictable behaviors and optimized interfaces. Human-systems integration for workload management and trust. Assurance and V&V for degraded communications and GPS-denied environments. Navigation and obstacle detection resilient to environmental challenges. Autonomous behavior design with graceful degradation mechanisms. Nontraditional Aviation Operations for Wildfire Response Wildfires are growing in severity, creating urgent needs for improved aerial firefighting and coordination. Current challenges include manual airspace management, limited visibility operations, intermittent monitoring, and unreliable communications. Research priorities include: Enable persistent wildfire monitoring and data dissemination. Optimize resource allocation and multi-mission planning. Extend UTM for wildfire-specific needs in disconnected environments. Improve communication throughput and reliability for UAS and emergency responders. Provide GPS-independent navigation for automated operations. Deliver predictive tools and common operating pictures for situational awareness. Nontraditional Aviation Operations for Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) AAM operations require scalable, service-based architectures and human-autonomy teaming to integrate new technologies safely. Research priorities include: Designing architectures for scalable AAM operations. Developing tools for effective human-autonomy collaboration. Dynamic route planning and scheduling under changing conditions. Integration of AAM with legacy low-altitude operations. Fleet and network management concepts. Cyber-resiliency is integrated into service architecture.