National Aeronautics and Space Administration

www.nasa.gov

AOSP Newsletter

Airspace Operations and Safety Program (AOSP)

OCT-DEC 2022 | Quarter 1

AAM National Campaign North 

Texas Cohort Conducts Flight Test

3

Successful TIM and Cockpit 

Motion Facility Demonstrations 

Held at Langley

10
2 AOSP NEWSLETTER // OCT-DEC 2022

AOSP IN THE NEWS

NASA To Study Urban 

Weather for Air Taxi and 

Cargo Drone Operations

Aviation Week (10/7) reports “with 

cargo drone and air taxi companies 

aiming to launch operations within 

the next several years, NASA is 

pushing to better understand the 

urban weather in which they will 

operate. Lightweight, electric 

aircraft are sensitive to bad weather 

Predicting weather will be critical for 

smooth and...”

Xwing Signs 3-Year 

Contract with NASA To 

Study Flight Automation

Aviation Week (10/13) reports 

“Xwing has signed a 3-year contract 

with NASA to study performance, 

procedures and risks for flight 

automation. The San Franciscobased startup initially plans to study 

hazards, performance and safety 

benefits of its vision-based autolanding system, it told Aerospace 

DAILY on Oct. 6. Data and...”

Commercial Aviation, Built 

on Pollution, Is Getting 

A Tiny Bit Greener

Seattle Times (11/23) reports “the 

amount of time between planes 

landing at Toronto Pearson 

International Airport might seem 

prosaic to the untrained eye, but 

there’s a lot more going on than a 

pilot negotiating the gentle return to 

earth of hundreds of tons of metal. 

Every millisecond that passes is tied 

to a new technology touted as a 

partial solution to two intractable 

problems (albeit of wildly divergent 

importance). ... so rather than 

have planes line up in a physical 

queue, NASA’s Airspace Technology 

Demonstration 2 software, or ATD2, creates a virtual line, such that 

time normally spent burning fuel 

on the taxiway is spent at the gate, 

engines off.”

NASA Envisions ‘Highways 

in The Sky’ with Air Taxis 

and Drone Deliveries and 

will Test New Technologies 

in Northeast Ohio

Cleveland Plain Dealer (11/23) 

reports “in the next several decades, 

new types of aircraft will fill the 

skies to transport people and 

goods in ways previously thought 

to be impossible. A new era in 

transportation is emerging, one 

where automated aircraft drop off 

packages, taxi people across town 

and even respond to emergencies. 

NASA’s vision for the future of 

aviation will require a very different 

infrastructure to enable the exchange 

of data between aircraft and air 

traffic control systems.”

NASA To Utilize Commercially 

Available TerraPoiNT 

Network In SF Bay Area 

To Further Urban Air 

Mobility Development

AP (12/6) reports “NextNav 

(Nasdaq: NN), a leader in next 

generation GPS, today announced 

that it has been selected by NASA’s 

Ames Research Center in Silicon 

Valleyto deliver PNT services for 

its urban drone program. Utilizing 

NextNav’s commercially deployed 

TerraPoiNT network in the San 

Francisco Bay area, NASA Ames 

will capture in-flight horizontal and 

vertical location data to validate 

drone flight safety at its Mountain 

View, California, facility.”
AOSP NEWSLETTER // OCT-DEC 2022 3

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

AAM National Campaign North 

Texas Cohort Conducts Flight 

Test 

POC: GREG JURO

On Oct. 11, National Campaign 

researchers within the Advanced 

Air Mobility (AAM) project took 

a step towards next generation air 

travel with a successful live flight 

test of emerging technologies. This 

live flight demonstration was done 

in collaboration with a nationwide 

partnership of companies and 

government agencies which included 

future airspace system automation, 

i.e., Providers of Services for Urban 

Air Mobility (PSU), advanced 

communications infrastructure, a 

surrogate electric vertical takeoff 

and Landing (eVTOL) aircraft and 

a simulated air route in the North 

Texas area. This effort is one of 

several ongoing National Campaign 

partnerships by a team collectively 

titled the North Texas Cohort, 

which includes representatives 

from 15 companies, universities, 

and government agencies who 

have been collaborating on the 

project for two years. The test 

built upon the earlier Urban 

Air Mobility (UAM) simulation 

work conducted in the Strategic 

Conflict Management Simulation 

led by the Air Traffic Management 

– Exploration project’s UAM 

Airspace Management subproject 

team. The vehicle, a Bell 407GXi 

helicopter provided by Bell Textron 

flew a simulated high-demand 

route for unmanned, autonomous 

cargo and passenger-carrying air 

transport while providing vital 

data for industry standards in 

airspace management, vehicle-toinfrastructure communications, and 

UAM flight operations. A researcher 

onboard the vehicle utilized a 

tablet display which was specifically 

customized to receive and send 

pertinent data for overall situational 

awareness and information exchange. 

The North Texas Cohort team was 

able to expand on earlier NASA-led 

research by validating the integration 

of live weather data and dynamic 

capacity balancing into a complex 

hardware and software solution 

needed to realize the next generation 

Tablet Display to receive and send data for overall situational awareness and information exchange
4 AOSP NEWSLETTER // OCT-DEC 2022

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

of airborne travel. The helicopter, 

which was utilized as a surrogate 

eVTOL for the demonstration, 

completed the flight along a notional 

high demand route while providing 

real-time weather and demand data 

to a traffic management system 

monitored on the ground. The route 

was flown multiple times and led 

to valuable lessons on the required 

information exchanged between 

the ground and air vehicle. Lessons 

from the North Texas Cohort 

research will be documented in a 

forthcoming flight test report. 

HDV Provides Flight Demo for 

the Hampton Roads AUVSI 

POC: LOUIS GLAAB

On Oct. 4, the Advanced Air 

Mobility project’s High Density 

Vertiplex (HDV) subproject 

flight operations team provided 

a coordinated dual aircraft flight 

demonstration at the Hampton 

Roads Association for the 

Association for Uncrewed Vehicle 

Systems International (AUVSI) 

conference. Two aircraft were 

launched approximately 90 

seconds apart to fly a simulated 

search and rescue mission. Both 

aircraft departed along a standard 

instrument departure leg and 

arrived along the same standard 

terminal arrival leg simulating 

low-density vertiport operations. 

SWS Formalizes Preliminary 

Partnership and Strategic 

Engagement Plan 

POC: NATASHA NEOGI

A preliminary partnership and 

strategic engagement plan were formulated in early October as a result 

of findings from the System-Wide 

Safety (SWS) project’s wildland 

firefighting operations workshop. 

The workshop, held in March 2022, 

surveyed stakeholder needs from the 

wildland firefighting, autonomous 

systems, and aviation communities. 

The findings were aggregated into a 

system engineering framework and 

used to create a wildfire stakeholder 

repository. This repository consists 

of systems modelling requirement 

elements that can be connected 

formally to other model elements 

to ensure traceability from stakeholder needs to Safety Demonstrator-1 realization. A gap analysis was 

performed to identify which of the 

stakeholder needs were currently 

satisfied by, or capable of, being 

met in the near future by in-house 

capabilities – identifying gaps in 

North Texas Cohort Research Team
AOSP NEWSLETTER // OCT-DEC 2022 

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

stakeholder needs that may need to 

be met through strategic partnerships. The preliminary partnership 

and strategic engagement plan 

then encapsulated SWS’s research 

portfolio approach to addressing 

identified gaps by outlining plans 

for establishing collaborative relationships across a broad spectrum 

of players. Primary partners include 

those government agencies currently 

deeply entrenched in the wildland 

firefighting operational world at the 

federal (e.g. the U.S. Forest Service, 

Department of the Interior, etc.), 

state agencies (e.g. CAL FIRE, etc.), 

local agencies (e.g. municipal fire 

departments, etc.), and tribal levels. 

Engagement with industry, including the wildland firefighting, robotics and autonomy, and aviation 

sectors, is a key focus in addressing technological capabilities and 

services that may be required for an 

in-time aviation safety management 

system for wildland firefighting 

operations. Strategic engagement 

includes coordination within NASA 

across its Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, Science Mission 

Directorate, and Space Technology 

Mission Directorate; Aeronautics 

projects themselves such as Advanced Capabilities for Emergency 

Response Operations, Air Traffic 

Management – Exploration, Transformational Tools and Technologies; 

and with external partners. 

AAM National Campaign 

Conducts Tabletops with 

Industry Partners 

POC: GERRIT EVERSON AND BRAD SNELLING

The Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) 

National Campaign’s Wisk partner 

demonstration team completed 

a series of 10 tabletop exercises 

with industry partners to explore 

functional allocations required for 

airspace automation in the AAM 

ecosystem. These exercises were 

conducted between March and 

October 2022 and included the 

following partners: 1) Wisk Aero, an 

original equipment manufacturer 

(OEM); 2) five airspace service 

providers: Avision, OneSky, SkyGrid, 

ANRA, and Collins Aerospace; and 

3) two Command and Control 

Communications Service Providers 

(C2CSP): AURA and Collins 

Aerospace. More work is needed to 

assess concepts and generate data 

to address technical and regulatory 

gaps requiring operational solutions 

to enable an increasingly automated 

AAM ecosystem. The NASA team 

worked with Wisk, the primary 

partner in this activity, to develop 

Provider of Services for Urban 

Air Mobility (PSU) user stories 

based on the public Concepts of 

Operations of the Federal Aviation 

Administration and Wisk. The 

first set of tabletops discussed 

characteristics of progressive Urban 

Air Mobility maturity levels based 

on the PSU user stories. These 

discussions are believed to be the 

first combined meetings between 

an aircraft OEM, government 

researchers, and airspace service 

providers to address airspace 

automation concepts. The next 

phase of this activity developed 

detailed scenarios for flight tabletop 

exercises. In addition to OEM and 

airspace partner collaboration, the 

two C2CSP partners were also 

included. These exercises have 

included a realistic set of initial 

conditions, assumptions, and 

infrastructure to facilitate detailed 

discussions on disparate systems that 

will be required to work together 

for efficiency and safety in AAM 

ecosystems. A final report of lessons 

learned from the tabletop meetings 

and exercises will be completed by 

the end of 2022. 

SWS Participates on 

Human as Automation 

Failsafe Panel at HFES 

POC: SUMMER BRANDT

The System-Wide Safety (SWS) 

project participated in the 

Human Factors and Ergonomics 

Society (HFES) 2022 Meeting 

held in October. Summer Brandt 

participated on the “Human 

as Automation Failsafe (HAF): 

Concept, Implications, Guidelines 

5
6 AOSP NEWSLETTER // OCT-DEC 2022

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

and Innovations” panel. Members 

from the Smart Information Flow 

Technologies (SIFT) team presented 

their “Humans as Failsafe” report. 

Humans are frequently left to 

backstop automated systems, and 

human factors specialists have 

argued against this for decades 

with partial success at best. Taking 

a different tack and designing to 

support it has been proposed. The 

participants were involved in a 

recent effort to review and document 

cases across multiple domains 

where operators acted as a “failsafe” 

for automation, intervening in 

unanticipated situations to maximize 

success and minimize damage. The 

panel defined an HAF incident 

and then investigated conditions 

and practices making HAF success 

more or less likely. Analyzing these 

historical incidents, remediation 

approaches were suggested. Summer 

Brandt walked through how the 

SWS project is incorporating the 

HAF concept into a ground control 

station and prototype assistant 

for multi-vehicle control of small 

Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS) 

in a wildland fire surveillance 

mission. There were approximately 

40 people in attendance. Christopher 

Miller and colleagues from SIFT 

were on the panel, and Julie 

Adams, an HFES fellow, was also in 

attendance and actively participated 

in the discussion. The objective was 

to briefly present these concepts, 

but more generally to discuss 

designing for inevitable HAF events. 

Representatives from Joby, Wisk, 

MITRE, the Massachusetts Institute 

of Technology, and many other 

universities were also in attendance. 

UAM Team Visits the 

FAA’s William J. Hughes 

Technical Center

POC: KEVIN WITZBERGER

On Oct. 12, members of NASA’s Air 

Traffic Management – Exploration 

project’s Urban Air Mobility (UAM) 

Airspace Management subproject 

visited the FAA’s William J. Hughes 

Technical Center. The UAM team 

was joined by Adam Yingling, the 

Advanced Air Mobility National 

Campaign integration of automated 

systems lead, and Gerrit Everso, 

the National Campaign partner 

demonstration technology lead. 

NASA representatives met with FAA 

personnel including Marty Suech, 

operational integration and test 

strategic coordinator; John Bradley, 

air traffic control subject matter 

expert; Tom Rubino, verification 

and validation strategies and 

practices branch representative; 

and Chuck Romano, the strategic 

initiatives coordinator for test and 

evaluation. The purpose of the 

meeting was to discuss the joint 

NASA/FAA UAM Maturity Level 

(UML)-3 Operational Integration 

Assessment (OIA) scheduled for 

2025. Discussion topics ranged from 

sharing lessons learned from Dallas/

Fort Worth International Airport and 

Atlantic City International Airport 

NASA and FAA representatives meet at the WJHTC
AOSP NEWSLETTER // OCT-DEC 2022 

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

simulated airspace procedures and 

design efforts to NASA, FAA, and 

industry-expected UML-3 OIA roles 

and responsibilities. Two important 

outcomes of the meeting include: 

1) identifying a need to connect a 

facility at NASA’s Ames Research 

Center in California to the existing 

NASA/FAA Laboratory Integrated 

Test Environment to ensure the 

research objectives can be satisfied, 

while also establishing a persistent 

capability that other Advanced Air 

Mobility efforts can leverage after the 

UML-3 OIA is completed; and 

2) informing opportunities for future 

National Campaign flight tests with 

UAM airspace simulation efforts. 

During lunch, Kevin Witzberger, 

UAM subproject manager, and Ian 

Levitt, UAM principal engineer, 

met with Eric Neiderman, deputy 

director of the William J. Hughes 

Technical Center, and informally 

talked about Advanced Air Mobility 

ecosystem research needs and 

potential opportunities to establish 

shared capabilities across NASA/FAA 

organizations to help address the 

research needs.

UAM Conducts Visits 

with Stakeholders 

POC: KEVIN WITZBERGER)

Members of the Air Traffic 

Management – Exploration project’s 

UAM Airspace Management 

subproject conducted visits with key 

stakeholders in October. The first 

visit was on Oct. 13 when the team 

met with staff from Blade Urban 

Air Mobility. At this meeting they 

were joined by Adam Yingling, the 

Advanced Air Mobility National 

Campaign integration of automated 

systems lead, and Gerrit Everson, 

National Campaign partner 

demonstration technology lead. 

Blade’s founder and chief executive 

officer, Robert Wiesenthal, opened 

the meeting with an overview 

of Blade and described potential 

future opportunities and challenges 

associated with electric vertical 

takeoff and landing (eVTOL) 

vehicles. Blade’s chief technology 

officer, Brandon Keene, introduced 

members of Blade’s operations 

team, which facilitated a lively 

question-and-answer session with 

NASA attendees. Since Blade is 

an indirect air carrier and the only 

operational UAM service provider, 

NASA gained valuable insight into 

current operational challenges 

and markets and potential future 

challenges and markets associated 

with using eVTOLs that could not 

otherwise be gained. Currently, 

organ transport operations provide 

55% of their operations while 

air taxi services to and from the 

Hamptons on Long Island are their 

most profitable. Blade offers airport 

transfers to and from the three 

major international airports of New 

York. Key takeaways from this visit 

included: 1) quieter eVTOLs will 

provide opportunities for growth in 

7

Airport Transfer Use Case. Taking off from the Hudson River Helipad to Newark.
8 AOSP NEWSLETTER // OCT-DEC 2022

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

areas that cannot be serviced today 

by noisy helicopters; 2) current 

and future New York operations 

will need to make use of current 

infrastructure and helicopter routes 

for the foreseeable future; 3) Blade 

serves as an indirect air carrier, and 

while unique, this is also intentional 

because it extracts Blade from the 

liability and insurance issues that 

operators are responsible for; and 

4) future New York operations that 

use eVTOLs will need to integrate 

safely with current helicopter 

operations rather than replace 

current helicopter operations. 

On Oct. 15, the team then visited 

the Helo Holdings, Inc. Heliport 

(HHI Heliport) in Kearny, 

New Jersey. During this visit, the 

team met with Jeff Hyman, the 

chief executive officer, and received 

a tour of the facility. HHI Heliport 

is a private, helicopter-only fixed 

based operator and conducts an 

average of 90 operations per day in 

the busiest helicopter environment 

on Earth. The HHI Heliport is 

a two-minute helicopter flight 

from commonly used heliports in 

Manhattan. HHI Heliport’s location 

close to Manhattan, Newark Liberty 

International Airport, and several 

major distribution warehouses – 

making it an attractive location for 

future eVTOL operations. Hyman 

discussed potential future facility 

expansion opportunities including 

notional graphical vertiport 

depictions. Challenges associated 

with the limited capacity of the 

electric grid were also discussed. 

As an experienced helicopter 

pilot, Hyman provided his insight 

into challenges associated with 

sharing landing and takeoff 

resources for mixed helicopter and 

eVTOL operations. 

SWS Researchers Contribute 

to 2023 FAA Data Challenge 

POC: MISTY DAVIES

On Oct. 15, the FAA released 

an announcement for their 2023 

FAA Data Challenge. The goal of 

Airport transfer use-case. Arrival at Fixed Operating Base at Newark.

NASA UAM team members with HHI Heliport CEO, Jeff Hyman.
AOSP NEWSLETTER // OCT-DEC 2022 9

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

the Data Challenge is to stimulate 

universities to apply artificial 

intelligence and machine learning 

to address aviation applications. 

As a regulator and operator, the 

FAA’s diverse mission activities 

collect and generate a tremendous 

amount of data. This data and 

information must be leveraged to 

its fullest extent possible to enable 

the mission, which is to provide the 

safest and most efficient aerospace 

system in the world, drive efficiency, 

improve accountability, fuel 

innovation, exploit the use of data, 

and embrace modern analytical 

techniques. The Data Challenge 

will provide proofs of concept for 

novel solutions and will also provide 

a pipeline for talented students 

at the intersection of computer 

science and aviation. System-Wide 

Safety (SWS) project subject matter 

experts Misty Davies and Nikunj 

Oza are contributing to this effort. 

For more information, visit https://

faadatachallenge.nianet.org/2023-

competition-overview/ 

SWS and Other Projects 

Participate in Autonomy 

in Aviation Symposium 

POC: ANDY LACHER AND NATASHA NEOGI

NASA researchers Natasha Neogi,

Andy Lacher, Ian Levitt, and 

Vincent Shultz attended the 

American Society for Testing and 

Material’s (ASTM) third annual 

Autonomy in Aviation Symposium 

on Oct. 18. The symposium was 

conducted as part of ASTM’s 

committee week meetings and 

helped to bring together key 

stakeholders in the general 

aviation and autonomous systems 

community for a close examination 

of the impact of these technologies 

on aviation safety. Additionally, 

Neogi, Schultz and Nick Borer 

and Sean Clarke (also of NASA) 

were in-person attendees for the 

ASTM Committee F44 on General 

Aviation. They participated in the 

F44 Main Committee, F44.10 

(General), F44.20 (Flight), F44.40 

(Powerplant), F44.50 (Systems 

and Equipment), and F44.90 

(Executive) subcommittees. NASA 

participants also attended meetings 

related to ASTM F38 (Unmanned 

Aircraft Systems), F39 (Aircraft 

Systems), and Aviation Committee 

377 (Autonomy in Design and 

Operations in Aviation). The 

symposium and the standards 

committee meetings allowed for 

a robust discussion on the use of 

autonomy in aviation and how it 

will impact the safety of aviation 

operations under a host of emerging 

market conditions, including 

the incorporation of regional 

air mobility, urban air mobility, 

unmanned aerial systems, and other 

novel operations and technologies. 

Work relating to NASA’s X-57 

distributed electric propulsion flight 

demonstrator was highlighted in 

the F44 general meeting, and the 

Autonomy in Aviation Symposium 

emphasized aspects such as the need 

for novel flight rules, the role of the 

pilot, and community acceptance. 

PAAV Meets with 

Northrop Grumman 

POC: RICHARD COPPENBARGER AND ARWA AWEISS

The Air Traffic Management – 

Exploration project’s Pathfinding 

for Airspace with Autonomous 

Vehicles (PAAV) subproject held 

meetings with Northrop Grumman 

on Sep. 15 and Oct. 19 to discuss 

potential flight demonstration 

opportunities. It was discovered 

that Northrop’s optionally 

piloted Firebird aircraft can be 

operated autonomously from 

gate to gate and is well suited for 

testing PAAV’s emerging concept 

elements for airspace integration. 

As a result, Northrop has taken 

preliminary steps towards making 

Firebird available in the 2023 

timeframe. During discussions 

about possible focus areas for flight 

demonstration, Northrop expressed 

interest in computing trajectory 

solutions in the presence of airspace 

constraints and leveraging data 

link. Discussions around a flight 

demonstration and potential 

locations was also a topic along 

with aligning flight test objectives. 

The value of conducting preparatory 

shakedown simulations with actual 

hardware and software in the loop 

was noted as a means of reducing 
10 AOSP NEWSLETTER // OCT-DEC 2022

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

technical risk and validating system 

interfaces. Next steps include a 

technical interchange meeting 

on Nov. 17, which will focus on 

defining the scope and objectives 

for the flight demonstration and 

identifying requirements related to 

hardware and software components, 

system integration, data collection, 

flight readiness reviews, and 

preflight testing. 

Successful TIM and 

Cockpit Motion Facility 

Demonstrations 

Held at Langley

POC: JON HOLBROOK

On Oct. 19–21, The System-Wide 

Safety (SWS) project organized and 

conducted a technical interchange 

meeting (TIM) with leading 

researchers and practitioners in 

the area of measuring successful 

performance of flight crews at 

NASA’s Langley Research Center in 

Virginia. Today’s safety policies and 

design decisions in the aerospace 

industry are often based on 

human error and failure data that 

are not representative of human 

performance. In the absence of 

data on routine successful human 

performance, “data-driven” policies 

and design decisions are subject to 

sampling bias and are not optimized 

to support or leverage human 

capabilities. The SWS project’s 

Human Contributions to Safety 

research team recently completed 

a high-fidelity commercial airline 

operations study designed to 

create a data testbed for exploring 

measures of pilots’ safety-producing 

behavior in June 2022. This is an 

emerging area of interest across a 

range of industry, government, and 

academic stakeholders. The goal 

of the TIM was to share ideas and 

identify collaboration opportunities 

focused on enabling methods for 

learning from what happens, not 

just from what fails. This work 

has the potential to massively 

Summary of the work accomplished; demo in the simulator; and industry, government, and academic 

stakeholders at the TIM discussing measuring the successful performance of flight crews.
AOSP NEWSLETTER // OCT-DEC 2022 11

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

expand the pool of safety-relevant 

data, which will: 1) enable better 

alignment between system designs 

and operators; 2) enhance the ability 

for safety-related decision to be 

“in-time”; and 3) reduce the risks 

associated with sampling bias.

UAM Leadership Briefs NATCA 

on UML-3 Airspace OIA 

POC: KEVIN WITZBERGER

On Oct. 20, Kevin Witzberger, 

the Air Traffic Management 

– Exploration project’s Urban 

Air Mobility (UAM) Airspace 

Management subproject 

manager, and Ian Levitt, UAM 

principal engineer, met with 

representatives from the FAA’s 

William J. Hughes Technical 

Center and National Air Traffic 

Control Association (NATCA) 

personnel to share information 

on the UAM Maturity Level-3 

(UML-3) Operational Integration 

Assessment (OIA). Attending the 

meeting were Will Hutson, the 

NATCA National UAM and UAM 

Traffic Management representative, 

and Adam Rhodes, the NATCA 

National NextGen representative. 

The information-sharing session 

discussed developments on the 

accredited NASA/FAA Laboratory 

Integrated Test Environment and 

the ongoing work by Air Traffic 

Management – Exploration on 

the UML-3 OIA. The NATCA 

representatives were enthusiastic 

about the support and expressed 

their desire to stay involved as 

the UML-3 OIA progresses. Next 

steps include inviting NATCA to 

participate in upcoming tabletop 

exercises with NASA and the FAA 

in January 2023. 

DIP SFNP Ops-2 Virtual 

Meeting with Google Research 

POC: MIRNA JOHNSON AND SWATI SAXENA

The Air Traffic Management 

– Exploration project’s Digital 

Information Platform subproject 

(DIP) Sustainable Fight National 

Partnership (SFNP) Ops-2 team 

held a virtual meeting with 

Google’s Climate Impact Research 

team on Oct. 26. The Google 

team is working on the contrail 

identification, prediction, impact, 

and avoidance. The Google Climate 

Impact Group’s project manager and 

research team attended the meeting 

and provided a better understanding 

of Google’s current research work 

and their plans on sustainability 

initiatives. The two teams discussed 

topics of mutual interest, such 

as predicting persistent contrail 

formation regions and developing 

methods for avoiding contrails. The 

Google team has been working 

with the Massachusetts Institute of 

Technology, the German Aerospace 

Center, and Imperial College in 

London on contrail research. Google 

has shown interest in partnering 

with NASA on this effort and has 

agreed to share more information 

and their publications on this topic. 

Next steps include establishing 

technical interchange meetings with 

Google Research, identifying areas 

the DIP team would like to further 

engage with them, and creating an 

engagement plan aligning with both 

organizations’ plans.

DIP Hosts ARMD Visit for 

Demonstration of Sustainable 

Flight Research 

POC: MIRNA JOHNSON

On Oct. 31, Bob Pearce, NASA’s 

associate administrator for 

Aeronautics, and other members of 

his office at NASA Headquarters 

in Washington visited North Texas 

to tour the facilities supporting 

the Sustainable Flight National 

Partnership Ops-1 Collaborative 

Digital Departure Re-Routing 

(CDDR) demonstration led by 

the Digital Information Platform 

(DIP) subproject of Air Traffic 

Management – Exploration. The 

group was initially introduced 

to the tools at the joint NASA/

FAA North Texas Research Facility, 

where they were provided an 

overview of the subproject and 

operational challenges the tools are 
12 AOSP NEWSLETTER // OCT-DEC 2022

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

addressing. The DIP team walked 

through a demonstration of the 

departure rerouting procedures 

that Air Traffic Control and flight 

operators coordinate using CDDR 

to achieve more efficient reroutes 

departing from Dallas/Fort Worth 

International Airport and Dallas 

Love Field Airport, as well as the 

critical information that needs to 

be shared to make these operational 

decisions. Kristen Wilson and 

John Short, representing FAA Air 

Traffic Control users, discussed 

the immediate positive impacts 

the visualization of information 

has to their workload and reroute 

decision making. The demonstration 

highlighted the need and approach 

to scale these benefits across the 

National Airspace System through 

a service-oriented architecture and 

digital services applying machine 

learning to adapt to other airspaces. 

Following the demonstration at 

North Texas, attendees proceeded 

to visit the American Airlines 

Integrated Operations Center 

and Southwest Airlines Network 

Operations Control to tour 

the facilities where CDDR is 

operationally implemented. Tim 

Niznik, American’s director of 

analytics, and Ken Vogt, Envoy 

Air’s manager of flight dispatch 

technologies, shared the fuel-saving 

benefits CDDR provides, the 

advantage the tools provide to fill 

gaps in experience, and support 

of DIP to expand these benefits. 

Rick Dalton, director of airspace 

and air traffic management at 

Southwest’s Network Operations 

Control, revealed that Southwest has 

saved more than $3 million using 

CDDR. Pearce and his staff had the 

opportunity to celebrate a longstanding partnership with Dallas/

Fort Worth airport over lunch, 

discussing upcoming collaborations 

between DIP and National 

Renewable Energy Lab Digital Twin 

work. The FAA regional director, 

Rob Lowe, was also in attendance. 

CDDR has completed Phase 1 of 

the technology transition to a new 

architecture and algorithms. In 

Fiscal Year 2023, CDDR will 

be available via a cloud-based 

platform to reduce NASA’s hardware 

footprint before proceeding to a new 

airspace in a demonstration in Fiscal 

Year 2024. 

AFCM Presents HPA 

Simulation Results to RTCA 

Special Committees 

POC: CASEY SMITH AND CONRAD RORIE

On Nov. 1, the Advanced Air 

Mobility project’s Automated Flight 

and Contingency Management 

(AFCM) subproject presented 

results of their August/September 

simulation testing to two RTCA 

subcommittees: SC-147 (Traffic 

Alert and Collision Avoidance 

System) and SC-228 (Minimum 

Performance Standards for 

Unmanned Aircraft Systems). The 

simulation was conducted by the 

AFCM’s Hazard Perception and 

Avoidance (HPA) in the Vertical 

Motion Simulator at NASA’s Ames 

Research Center in California. This 

research evaluated performance 

and pilot acceptability of an FAAsponsored prototype version of 

the Airborne Collision Avoidance 

System (ACAS) standard currently 

in design for rotorcraft, ACAS-Xr, 

in application for electric vertical 

takeoff and landing vehicles and 

with assistive automation concept 

software. Motion-based testing was 

designed to incite and assess varied 

avoidance maneuvers recommended 

by the system in response to a wide 

variety of encounter geometries 

and a range of flight phases 

in preparation for the Spring 

2023 flight testing as part of the 

National Campaign’s Integration of 

Automation Systems first series of 

research flight tests, IAS-1. 

SWS Researchers Help to 

Shape ConOps at Wildland 

Fires Tabletop Exercise 

POC: SUMMER BRANDT

On Nov. 1, the NASA Aeronautics 

Research Institute (NARI) hosted 

a wildland fires tabletop exercise. 
AOSP NEWSLETTER // OCT-DEC 2022 13

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

System-Wide Safety (SWS) project 

subject matter experts Summer 

Brandt and Natasha Neogi 

participated in the meeting. In 

addition to participation from 

ARMD and the Science Mission 

Directorate, there was also multiagency participation representing 

the U.S. Forest Service, Army 

National Guard, Air Force, and FAA. 

The purpose of the exercise was to: 

1) understand the current state of 

the art in decision and execution 

cycles specific to prescribed burns; 

2) current barriers to effective 

prescribed burn strategies; 3) 

identify concepts, models, data, 

and technologies which could be 

leveraged for improving current 

practices and addressing barriers to 

effective prescribed burns; and 4) 

develop a demonstration plan of 

proposed concepts and technologies 

for burn risk mitigation, monitoring, 

and containment of burns that may 

go out of control. This is a multiagency effort to develop a concept 

of operations on current state-ofthe-art barriers to effectiveness, 

and areas where technologies and 

coordination can be improved. A 

clear multi-year demonstration plan 

of use of advanced methods and 

technologies is being developed. The 

SWS project participants will have 

opportunities to shape the concept 

of operations and participate in the 

planned activities.

SWS Formal Methods Work 

Highlighted at FAA Human 

Factors Seminar 

POC: NATASHA NEOGI

On Nov. 1, Natasha Neogi, the 

System-Wide Safety (SWS) project’s 

technical lead for formal methods, 

attended the FAA Human Factors 

New and Emerging Aviation 

Technologies seminar series. A 

highlight from the meeting included 

a presentation by Laura Humphrey, 

team lead of the verification 

and validation of complex and 

autonomous systems at the U.S. Air 

Force Research Laboratory, titled 

“Applications of Formal Methods to 

Aerospace and Autonomous Systems.” 

Her presentation highlighted 

work that has been done in formal 

methods by the SWS project team 

verifying the Compact Position 

Reporting Algorithm and NASA’s 

Detect and AvoID Alerting Logic 

for Unmanned System Conflict 

Detection and Resolution Algorithm 

in PVS. Humphrey also highlighted 

the work done on the formal 

synthesis of designs, which is joint 

work with the Air Force Research 

Laboratory, the SWS project, and 

the University of Texas, Austin. 

Additionally, Humphrey called out 

the RTCA DO-333 Certification 

Case Studies that NASA funded, 

which provided a benchmark for the 

industry on how to effectively use 

the RTCA DO-333 formal methods 

supplement in a certification effort. 

This emphasized NASA’s leadership 

position in the field of using formal 

methods for assuring safety-critical 

systems in the aerospace domain. 

Also presenting at the seminar was 

Huafeng Yu, senior researcher at 

Boeing, who discussed certification 

challenges for artificial-intelligenceenabled autonomous systems. He 

highlighted several techniques used 

at Boeing that were developed in 

collaboration with NASA’s SWS team. 

SWS and ASRS Participate 

at InfoShare 

POC: NIKUNJ OZA

System-Wide Safety (SWS) project 

researcher Nikunj Oza attended 

last week’s InfoShare conference 

in Seattle on Nov. 1-3. During the 

workshop, progress was made on 

finalizing a technical interchange 

meeting between SWS researchers 

and American Airlines to be 

held in Dallas in February 2023. 

Discussions also occurred between 

SWS and FedEx regarding future 

collaboration opportunities in the 

context of establishing a safety 

enhancement proposed at a recent 

Joint Implementation Measurement 

Data Analysis Team meeting on 

fatigue risk management in cargo 

operations. Additionally, NASA 

Aviation Safety Reporting System 
14 AOSP NEWSLETTER // OCT-DEC 2022

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

(ASRS) project manager Mary 

Keller delivered five presentations 

on ASRS. The five presentations 

were titled: “NASA ASRS 

Reports: Communication Barriers 

Between Pilots and Mechanics”; 

“Disconnected: NASA ASRS 

Reports About Ground/Gate 

Communication Issues”; “Mixing 

It Up: NASA ASRS Reports 

About Rotorcraft Operations at 

Non-Towered Airports”; “See, Be 

Seen, Avoid: NASA ASRS Reports 

on Paragliders Activity Around 

Aircraft”; and “New Crew Dynamics: 

NASA ASRS Reports About Crew 

Resource Management.” 

DIP Team Meets with 

United Airlines 

POC: MIRNA JOHNSON

On Nov. 2, members of the Air 

Traffic Management – Exploration 

project’s Digital Information 

Project (DIP) subproject team 

visited the United Airlines Network 

Operations Center to identify 

collaboration opportunities with 

a technical information meeting 

on their operations and airspace 

procedures. The DIP team was 

welcomed by Susan Pfingstler, 

United’s managing director of 

network operations air traffic 

control strategy, and her leads for 

analytics, system wide information 

management integration, flight 

planning, and flight operations. 

After an initial tour of the facilities, 

the NASA and United teams 

discussed operational challenges 

in critical airspaces – particularly 

related to reroute management. 

Use cases for Collaborative Digital 

Departure Reroute (CDDR) and 

other NASA-developed prediction 

services were identified as potential 

collaboration efforts to support 

data-driven analytics and decision 

making. United has submitted their 

response to DIP’s announcement 

for collaboration and expected to 

formalize partnership in the coming 

days and is planning to participate in 

upcoming demonstrations of CDDR 

in a new airspace for Fiscal Year 

2024 sustainability demonstration. 

SWS Presents Safety 

Challenges and Solutions 

at UxS Industry Event 

POC: KYLE ELLIS

On Nov. 2, several members of the 

System-Wide Safety (SWS) project 

presented at an Unmanned Systems 

(UxS) Industry event hosted by 

DRONERESPONDERS and 

NASA’s Langley Research Center in 

Virginia. The event was a successful 

engagement with industry to identify 

emergency response community 

needs for Advanced Air Mobility 

applications and NASA’s ability to 

advance and integrate potential 

solutions. Kyle Ellis, deputy project 

manager for SWS, presented an 

overview of the In-Time Aviation 

Safety Management System, and 

SWS researchers Natasha Neogi, 

Steve Young, and Evan Dill presented 

research studies on advanced safety 

technologies of interest to the 

emergency response community. This 

engagement resulted in identification 

of target areas of mutual interest 

that are now being pursued by 

the SWS project and members 

of the DRONERESPONDERS 

community, leveraging an 

umbrella Space Act Agreement 

and initial annex recently signed 

by the two organizations. The 

DRONERESPONDERS 

community and expertise coupled 

with NASA’s research and 

development efforts pose a significant 

win-win opportunity to execute 

on NASA’s mission objectives and 

to expand Advanced Air Mobility 

operations for the public good. 

PAAV Attends the RACCA 

Annual Meeting 

POC: MIWA HAYASHI AND ARWA AWEISS

On Nov. 1-3, several researchers represented the Air Traffic Management 

– Exploration project’s Pathfinding 

for Airspace Autonomous Vehicles 

(PAAV) subproject at the Regional 

Air Cargo Carriers Association’s 

(RACCA) annual meeting in Scottsdale, Arizona. This year’s RACCA 

event celebrated their twentieth-year 

anniversary and was attended by 

over 400 people. PAAV researchers 

achieved their goal of expanding connections to improve their research 

capabilities. They established several 

new regional air cargo industry and 

government contacts including 
AOSP NEWSLETTER // OCT-DEC 2022 15

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

Ameriflight, Reliable Robotics, Sabrewing, and Aura. Contact was also 

made with the U.S. Department of 

Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration. 

The researchers attended presentations on issues currently facing the 

industry, including pilot shortages and aging aircraft, as well as a 

panel discussion by emerging aircraft 

technology startup representatives 

(Sabrewing, Beta Technologies, and 

Reliable Robotics). The researchers 

also had an opportunity to see static 

displays of the new Cessna SkyCourier C-408, Beech 1900D, and SAAV 

340 at Scottsdale’s airport. 

HDV Submits Safety Case to 

FAA for BVLOS of Sight Waiver 

POC: LOUIS GLAAB

On Nov. 3, the Advanced Air Mobility project’s High Density Vertiplex 

(HDV) subproject submitted the 

Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) safety case to the FAA, requesting a waiver to perform BVLOS 

operations at the City Environment 

Range Testing for Autonomous Integrated Navigation (CERTAIN) range 

located at NASA’s Langley Research 

Center in Virginia. Matt Coldsnow, 

the FAA Office of NextGen advisor to director of requirements at air 

combat command, collaborated with 

the HDV team, led the development 

of the safety case, and submitted 

the request. The waiver will enable 

limited BVLOS operations to be performed in support of HDV’s research 

and test objectives, marking a milestone for this effort that has spanned 

approximately 14 months. HDV has 

two primary thrusts: 1) to perform 

rapid prototyping and assessment of 

an Urban Air Mobility ecosystem to 

evaluate and assess the integration 

of onboard autonomous systems, 

airspace management systems, fleet 

control/ground control station 

operator, and vertiport automation 

systems; and 2) to perform testing 

and safety risk assessments to achieve 

operational credit for enabling NASA 

technologies for unmanned aircraft 

systems and aircraft to accelerate 

technology transfer. Within the 

BVLOS safety case, two NASA technologies are included to enable safe 

operations including the Integrated 

Configurable Architecture for Reliable Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Operations and the Safe2Ditch 

Autonomous Contingency Management system. The BVLOS safety case 

provides a comprehensive description 

of the system to be used, concept of 

operations, hazards, and mitigations. 

A team of engineers contributed to 

this document including Robert 

McSwain, Jake Revesz, Steve Geuther, 

Jake Schaefer, and Lou Glaab. 

SWS Participates at the PHM 

Society Conference 

POC: CHETAN KULKARNI

On Nov. 1-4, System-Wide Safety 

(SWS) project researchers and management attended the 14th Annual 

Conference of the Prognostics and 

Health Management (PHM) Society 

held in Nashville. The conference 

consisted of keynote speakers from 

defense and industry; technical panel 

sessions; tutorials; technical presentations; and additional events to 

present the state of the art and other 

advances in systems health management in aerospace, transportation, 

human health and performance, and 

artificial intelligence. The conference 

attracted more than 250 participants 

around the planet. SWS researcher 

Chetan Kulkarni served as the 

technical program committee chair. 

Chris Teubert served as co-chair for 

the poster sessions. Matteo Corbetta 

was one of the judges who evaluated 

participants of the doctoral symposium, where 11 doctoral students 

presented their work. The recently 

released ProgPy tool by the group 

was a topic of interest for several researchers who are interested in using 

it in their work. Potential partnerships with NASA are in discussion 

with both industry and academia to 

visit NASA’s Ames Research Center 

in California or collaborate with 

researchers within the group. 

AOSP Participates at ATCA 

Global Conference 

POC: SHIVANJLI SHARMAI AND 

ABIGAIL GLENN-CHASE

On Nov. 7-9, representatives from 

AOSP and its projects participated 

in the Air Traffic Control Association (ATCA) Global Conference 

and Exposition. The conference was 
16 AOSP NEWSLETTER // OCT-DEC 2022

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

held at the Walter E. Washington 

Convention Center in Washington, DC. The AOSP team hosted 

a booth displaying research activities across its research portfolio and 

projects, including NASA’s Sky for 

All, Sustainable Flight National 

Partnership, and recent Advanced 

Air Mobility project YouTube videos. 

Nearly 2,000 air traffic management professionals from around the 

planet attended the event. The event 

was kicked off by ATCA president 

Brian Bruckbauer, followed by a 

keynote speech by NASA’s deputy 

administrator, Pam Melroy. Other 

NASA speakers included Bhavya Lal, 

associate administrator for technology, policy, and strategy; Kathy 

Lueders, associate administrator 

for space operations; Akbar Sultan, 

AOSP program director; Parimal 

Kopardekar, NASA Aeronautics 

Research Institute (NARI) director; 

Raj Pai, chief technologist for aeronautics at NASA’s Ames Research 

Center in California; Kenneth 

Freeman, cybersecurity aerospace 

engineer; and Ian Levitt, Urban Air 

Mobility airspace subproject principal engineer. Other NASA members 

attending the conference included 

Paul Krois representing SystemWide Safety, Bryan Barmore and 

David Wing from NASA’s Langley 

Research Center in Virginia, Steve 

Weidner from NARI, and Barry 

Sullivan from AOSP. NASA also 

participated in the ATCA Global 

Women in Aviation breakfast. More 

than 200 women from across government, industry, and academia 

gathered to build connections and 

advance women in the field. NASA 

Ames’s aeronautics director, Huy 

Tran; Air Traffic Management – 

Exploration deputy project manager 

Shivanjli Sharma; Sky for All chief 

strategist Jeanne Yu; and NARI 

project administrator Abigail GlennChase facilitated three remarkable 

table conversations on topics ranging from women in technical and 

maintenance careers, sustainability, 

ascending to leadership roles in 

technical agencies, and building 

successful partnerships. The event 

enabled discussions with key members of the FAA, development of 

potential collaborations across the 

FAA and the U.S. Department of 

Transportation, as well as engagement with industry. 

SWS Presents IFAR Scientific 

Assessment at ICAO RPAS 

Symposium 

POC: KYLE ELLIS

On Nov. 9, Kyle Ellis of the 

System-Wide Safety (SWS) project 

participated in an International 

Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) 

Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems 

(RPAS) panel. The panel was assembled by the International Forum 

of Aeronautics Research (IFAR) and 

hosted in Montreal, Canada. The 

focus of the panel was to discuss 

NASA Team at ATCA Global Conference
AOSP NEWSLETTER // OCT-DEC 2022 17

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

a scientific assessment on safety 

needs to enable Urban Air Mobility 

(UAM). The panel discussion helped 

to outline the current challenge 

space and to establish broader global 

coordination. The symposium was 

attended by several global leaders in 

the aviation industry pursuing the 

transformation of the aviation industry, including Advanced Air Mobility operations such as UAM. The 

IFAR scientific assessment teams are 

focused on gathering international 

consensus in identifying existing 

technology and policy gaps that 

must be addressed to enable UAM 

and achieve the vision of the future 

global airspace. The IFAR scientific 

assessments outline the technical 

and political challenges that NASA 

and other similar research organizations across the globe must collaborate on to integrate UAM concepts 

into the airspace. 

SWS Researchers Solicited 

for DARPA Assured Autonomy 

Program Flight Testing 

POC: NATASHA NEOGI

On Nov. 9, System-Wide Safety 

(SWS) researchers Natasha Neogi 

and Irene Gregory, along with 

Vanessa Aubuchon of the Transformational Tools and Technologies 

project, served as subject matter 

experts in the review of the Defense Advanced Research Projects 

Agency’s (DARPA) Assured Autonomy flight test. DARPA’s Assured 

Autonomy program is working 

to provide continual assurance of 

a learning enabled cyber physical system’s safety and functional 

correctness, both at the time of its 

design and during its operational 

life cycle. Parts of the program focus 

on developing mathematically verifiable approaches and tools that can 

be applied to different types and 

applications of data-driven machine 

learning algorithms in these systems 

to enhance their autonomy and assure they are achieving an acceptable 

level of safety. Neogi was solicited 

to provide expertise to the Assured 

Autonomy performers. 

SWS Project Holds TIM with 

FAA’s UAS Integration Office 

POC: ERSIN ANCEL

Representing the System-Wide 

Safety (SWS) project, researchers 

William Cummings, Tricia Revolinsky, Bailey Ethridge, and Ersin 

Ancel held a technical interchange 

meeting (TIM) with the FAA’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Integration Office in early November. 

The team presented an overview of 

the Ground Risk Assessment Service 

Provider software tool and future 

enhancements that will expand the 

public-facing service to perform 

combined air and ground risk minimization. The software development 

effort is supported by AOSP’s Air 

Traffic Management – Exploration 

and SWS projects. Plans to collaborate further with the UAS Integration Office were discussed. 

AAM National Campaign IAS 

Team Completes Spiral-1 

Flight Testing 

POC: ADAM YINGLING

The Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) 

project’s National Campaign subproject team successfully performed 

a number of tests this quarter towards closing out its Integration of 

Automated Systems (IAS) Spiral-1 

flight tests. The first tests included a 

number of ground tests at Sikorsky 

Aircraft in Stratford, Connecticut 

during the week of Oct. 16. The 

National Campaign subproject’s IAS 

team conducted these ground tests in 

preparation for the Spiral-1B flight 

tests scheduled for early November 

2022. The ground tests validated that 

NASA middleware updates resolved 

deficiencies discovered during Spiral1A flight tests conducted in late 

August 2022. The updates addressed 

deficiencies such as automation 

induced oscillations in aircraft pitch 

and roll, improved telemetry performance during datalink dropouts, and 

enhanced pilot displays for situational awareness. These updates will 

improve aircrew ride quality while 

autonomously flying precision routes 

and aid in efficient execution of flight 

test points during Spiral-2 flight tests 

planned for 2023. 

The National Campaign’s IAS team 

successfully closed out it’s IAS 

Spiral-1 flight tests on Nov. 10. The 

primary objective of this testing 

was to validate the physical and 
18 AOSP NEWSLETTER // OCT-DEC 2022

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

functional interfaces between the 

NASA test systems and the Sikorsky Autonomous Research Aircraft. 

This testing demonstrated that the 

IAS middleware properly translated 

automation algorithm commands 

from the Automated Flight Contingency Management (AFCM) team’s 

interface to the Sikorsky aircraft – a 

highly modified S-76B. During the 

two sorties flown, testing validated 

that aircrew ride quality was significantly improved for the NASA 

research pilot who was overseeing the 

execution of the tests. The algorithms 

flew precise four-directional trajectories, meeting all test objectives. The 

flight test team included more than 

20 personnel from NASA, Sikorsky, 

the Defense Advanced Research 

Projects Agency, as well as additional 

subject matter experts from AFCM’s 

Flight Path Management and Hazard 

Perception and Avoidance teams, the 

FAA, and the U.S. Air Force’s Agility Prime program. Importantly, IAS 

Spiral-1 flight tests validated that all 

previously discovered deficiencies 

were resolved. Examples include the 

attenuation of automation induced 

oscillations in aircraft pitch and roll, 

improved telemetry performance 

during datalink dropouts, and enhanced pilot displays for situational 

awareness. This was an important 

step towards the primary objective of 

maturing and evaluating NASA automation technologies in a representative environment while executing 

their envisioned complex operational 

scenarios. The next set of flights are 

planned for early Spring 2023 as a 

part of IAS-1 Spiral-2 and will test 

the NASA automation algorithms in 

a relevant airspace using other physical aircraft called “intruders.” 

SWS Participates at Various 

Standards Group Meetings

POC: MISTY DAVIES, MALLORY GRAYDON

AND NATASHA NEOGI

The System-Wide Safety (SWS) 

project participated in various 

standards groups meetings this 

quarter. The first meeting was the 

American Society for Testing and 

Materials (ASTM) meeting on Oct. 

11. The meeting was organized by 

the NASA Aeronautics Research 

Institute at NASA’s Ames Research 

Center in California. Misty Davies 

and Evan Dill provided presentations on SWS research activities, 

and how SWS research feeds into 

standards including current ASTM 

standards activities.

The second series of meetings was 

at the Q4 plenary meeting of SAE’s 

S-18 and S-18A committees in 

Atlanta held Oct. 17–21, in which 

Mallory Graydon participated. S-18 

and S-18A are drafting revisions 

to two well-known aviation safety 

standards: ARP4754A “Guidelines 

for Development of Civil Aircraft and Systems” and ARP4761 

“Guidelines and Methods for Conducting the Safety Assessment 

Process on Civil Airborne Systems 

and Equipment.” Revised versions 

of these standards, ARP4754B and 

ARP4761A, were put to ballot earlier this year, and the committee is 

revising them to address submitted 

comments. S-18 is also writing reports on: 1) the subject of “generic 

errors,” including the meaning of 

the “no single failure” requirement 

for critical functions and whether 

this can be addressed by development assurance or diversity; 2) the 

use of the Systems Theoretic Process 

Analysis in a civil aviation context; 

3) the applicability of ARP4754B 

and ARP4761A processes to unmanned aircraft systems; 4) the 

interaction between human-factorsrelated assurance activities and the 

safety assessment process; and 5) 

the use of tools and modeling in 

aircraft development. 

The third meeting was to the 

SAE-G34/EUROCASE Working 

Group-114 standards group on Nov. 

17, in which SWS researchers Natasha Neogi and Sarah Lehman were 

invited to give a talk titled “Towards Assurance for Safety-Critical, 

Machine Learning-enabled Aviation 

Systems.” The group acts as a key 

forum for enabling global adoption 

and implementation of artificial intelligence technologies that embed 

or interact with aeronautical systems. A key aim is to enable aerospace manufacturers and regulatory 

agencies to consider and implement 

common sense approaches to the 

certification of artificial intelligence 

systems. Neogi and Lehman ad-
AOSP NEWSLETTER // OCT-DEC 2022 19

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

dressed the potential use of testing 

in its various forms in advancing the pursuit of assurance for 

machine-learning-enabled systems. 

The talk centered on investigating 

paths to transition learning enabled 

systems into risk tolerant aviation 

applications. Neogi and Lehman 

then explored the ability of metrics 

to enhance the understanding of 

the topological nature of an input 

with respect to the training set of a 

learning enabled component. They 

outlined schemes for augmenting 

the metrics to give a nuanced interpretation of the use of such metrics 

to identify potentially problematic 

inputs for safety-critical systems, 

and they presented their results of 

an initial empirical evaluation of 

these schemes. 

AAM National Campaign Team 

Visits Joby 

POC: DAVID ZAHN

On Nov. 15–17, three members of 

the Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) 

project’s National Campaign partnership team visited Joby at their 

Marina, California facility. The 

purpose of the visit was to conduct 

testing and collect data with Joby’s 

high-fidelity engineering simulator 

as part of the National Campaign-1 

airspace architecture partnership. 

This test focused on researching 

candidate AAM procedures tailored to Urban Air Mobility vehicle 

performance and configuration. 

Four Joby pilots, including two test 

pilots and two commercial pilots, 

were evaluated while flying the 

NASA-developed procedures. All 

four Joby pilots were able to complete the departure and approach 

test points and provided feedback 

on the National Campaign developed departure and approach 

procedure plates. The team was 

not able to capture all the missed 

approach test points from two of 

the Joby pilots. This was caused by 

an event that occurred late afternoon on Nov. 17 that prevented 

battery data logging. Despite best 

efforts from several Joby personnel, 

they were not able to fully resolve 

the problem. The team did reach 

minimum success in that data was 

collected across the departure and 

approach test points with all four 

Joby pilots. The remaining two Joby 

pilots and simulator support team 

will execute the missed approach 

test points needed to complete the 

test. The Joby tactical team will 

follow up with the company during the next two weeks to get the 

remaining 22 missed approach test 

points uploaded to NASA Box. The 

National Campaign team is working on analyzing the simulation 

data to report on procedure safety, 

efficiency, passenger comfort, and 

acoustic exposure. The report will 

be ready for NASA internal review 

by Dec. 23, 2022.

ETM Team Meets Partners

POC: JEFF HOMOLA

The Air Traffic Management–

Exploration project’s Upper Class 

E Traffic Management (ETM) 

team met with key stakeholders 

and partners this past quarter. In 

the first meeting, held Oct. 13, the 

team met with representatives from 

industry, the FAA, U.S. Forest Service, Department of Defense, and 

other NASA organizations. During 

this meeting, the ETM team, along 

with members of industry, provided 

news and updates on recent and 

Left: NASA Joby Partnership Team, Andrew Guion and Sarah Eggum–NASA Armstrong, David Zahn–

NASA Ames. Right: Experimental Approach Plate
20 AOSP NEWSLETTER // OCT-DEC 2022

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

ongoing developments. A discussion on altitude referencing and 

implications for separation in the 

stratosphere was also held, followed 

by an overview of a recent, recordbreaking flight test by a fixed-wing 

High Altitude Long Endurance 

aircraft. A summary of relevant 

papers in review at the International Civil Aviation Organization 

for the current assembly was also 

presented. This was followed by 

the first public presentation of the 

Cooperative Area Concept by the 

FAA to a broader audience. Recent 

NASA work and resulting publications on negotiation modeling were 

also presented.

On Nov. 28, the team met with a 

group from NASA’s Airborne Sciences to discuss potential collaborations. The intent of this initial 

meeting was to begin a dialogue 

between the two teams to explore 

opportunities where planned live 

flights of NASA high-altitude assets 

(e.g., ER-2, Global Hawk) can be 

leveraged to ingest data into ETM 

prototype systems for early insights 

into service-supported high-altitude 

operations. A number of flight 

opportunities were identified in 

calendar year 2023 that the teams 

will target and plan towards. The 

potential collaboration is of mutual 

benefit to Airborne Sciences as it 

provides a pathway to integrating 

NASA flight data into a research environment where new concepts and 

technologies can be tested. Next 

steps include setting up a technical interchange meeting between 

the teams for a deeper dive on data 

systems and formats.

DIP Team Meet with GE 

Research and GE Aerospace 

POC: SWATI SAXENA AND MIRNA JOHNSON

On Nov. 30, the Air Traffic Management – Exploration project’s 

Digital Information Project (DIP) 

subproject team conducted a virtual 

meeting with the General Electric 

(GE) Research and GE Aerospace 

teams working on contrails research. 

Specifically, the DIP team’s Sustainable Flight National Partnership 

Ops-2 team held an introductory 

technical meeting where they provided an overview of DIP and the 

team’s SOAR service for contrail 

avoidance. At the meeting the Ops2 team learned about the ongoing 

work on contrails at both GE Research and GE Aerospace. GE has 

been working in this area actively 

in recent years and shared their 

approach and plan. Their focus is 

on climate modeling and characterizing the impact of different types 

of fuels on contrail formation. They 

are doing both simulations and 

experiments, including high-fidelity 

computational fluid dynamics 

simulations. Different fuels such 

as sustainable aviation fuels and 

hydrogen are being evaluated. GE 

is also working with NASA’s Glenn 

Research Center in Cleveland conducting experiments in the Glenn 

Particulate Aerosol Lab to study the 

contrail properties for hydrogen 

fuel. GE is interested in further 

engaging with NASA on this topic. 

The next step is to set up a technical interchange meeting in January 

2023 where the Ops-2 team will 

do a deep dive of SOAR tasks and 

milestones, learn more about GE 

modeling work, and identify partnership opportunities.

SWS Attends JIMDAT Meetings

POC: MICHAEL VINCENT, LANCE PRINZEL

AND KYLE ELLIS

Representatives from the SystemWide Safety (SWS) project attended on-going meetings of the Joint 

Implementation Measurement Data 

Analysis Team (JIMDAT) this past 

quarter. The first meeting was held 

Oct. 4-5 at the National Air Carrier 

Association (NACA) headquarters 

in Arlington, Virginia. Representing 

SWS were Lance Prinzel and Michael Vincent. JIMDAT monitors 

the implementation and effectiveness of Commercial Aviation Safety 

Team (CAST) safety enhancements 

and recommends modifications 

and changes to the CAST Safety 

Portfolio (https://www.cast-safety.

org). JIMDAT, in conjunction 

with the Aviation Safety Information Analysis and Sharing (ASIAS) 

program, also identifies emerging 

risks and additional areas of study. 

A number of safety enhancements 

were reviewed at the October meeting including closeout of research 
AOSP NEWSLETTER // OCT-DEC 2022 21

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

safety enhancements that NASA 

had assumed lead roles for. NASA 

received several new actions in 

support of JIMDAT for report out 

at the next meeting. In addition, 

there was explored establishment 

of a new working group that, if 

approved by CAST, directly addresses SWS research and development efforts in safety management 

systems and new advances in data 

science. Finally, based on technical 

discussions at the JIMDAT meeting, 

Kyle Quakenbush, data science lead 

for ASIAS, has accepted invitation 

to meet with the SWS safety intelligence team. He has also agreed to 

deliver a briefing as part of the SWS 

project monthly tech talk series. 

Following meetings were held on 

Nov. 15–18, hosted by EmbryRiddle Aeronautical University in 

Daytona Beach, Florida, and Nov. 

28-30, which was held at NACA in 

Arlington, Virginia. Prinzel provided a briefing on previous NASA 

research on somatogravic illusions 

and air transport safety. As a result, 

the SWS team received actions to 

include continued exploration of 

extension to previous NASA-sponsored Technologies for Airplane 

State Awareness loss-of-control 

inflight safety technology research 

and development. Additionally, a 

new JIMDAT Fatigue Working 

Group was initiated that NASA 

successfully lobbied for. Erin FlynnEvans and Kevin Gregory will serve 

as NASA subject matter experts. 

Kyle Ellis gave a presentation on 

NASA’s In-Time Safety Management System describing how it can 

help enable JIMDAT/CAST safety 

metrics and be responsive to envisioned changes expected for the 

future National Airspace System. 

SWS continues to work multiple 

safety enhancement actions in support of JIMDAT, leveraging the 

project’s internationally renowned 

expertise in aviation safety. 

AAM and HDV Meet to 

Plan Scalable Autonomous 

Operations Work Packages 

POC: JEFF HOMOLA

On Nov. 30–Dec. 1, the Advanced 

Air Mobility (AAM) project and its 

High Density Vertiplex (HDV) subproject held a team face-to-face meeting at NASA’s Ames Research Center 

in California. During the meeting, 

the plans and status of preparations 

for the Scalable Autonomous Operations work package were discussed 

with respect to simulation, flight testing, and beyond visual line of sight 

flight operations. An initial simulation experiment review was held, followed by presentations from each of 

the primary technical research areas 

and some live demonstrations of current capabilities. Facility tours of the 

Airspace Operations Laboratory and 

Autonomous Vehicle Applications 

Laboratory were also conducted. The 

event was successful, with plans for 

additional follow-up discussions on 

identified topics. 

ATM-X and DLR Complete 

Review of Year 2 Collaborative 

Research 

POC: WILLIAM CHAN

The Air Traffic Management – 

Exploration (ATM-X) project met 

with the German Aerospace Center 

(DLR) in Braunschweig, Germany, 

on Nov. 29–Dec. 2. The purpose 

of the visit was to conduct a review 

of joint research completed in 2022 

with DLR and present findings at 

the DLR HorizonUAM (Urban Air 

Mobility) Symposium. The review 

covered topics such as comparing 

markets in the United States and 

Germany for increasingly autonomous cargo and UAM operations, 

UAM network design, UAM flight 

performance models, and respective 

simulation capabilities for conducting research. The review also 

included a flight demonstration by 

DLR and Volocopter, an aircraft 

manufacturer in Germany, at the 

DLR testing facility at Cochstedt 

NASA and DLR researchers pose for a team picture
22 AOSP NEWSLETTER // OCT-DEC 2022

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

Airport, where Volocopter demonstrated its cargo drone flying 

specific use-cases. On Dec. 1–2, the 

ATM-X team made a presentation 

at the second DLR HorizonUAM 

Symposium which highlighted the 

broad work DLR is conducting to 

enable UAM operations supported 

by the HorizonUAM project. The 

multi-day symposium included 

two presentations from ATM-X. 

Shivanjli Sharma and Kurt Swieringa 

presented an overview of UAM 

flight activities and demonstrations 

supported by the Advanced Air 

Mobility and ATM-X projects. In 

addition, Kevin Witzberger presented an overview of the work to 

collaboratively develop a UAM 

airspace management system and 

lessons learned in adapting the 

UAM Traffic Management system 

to manage UAM operations. The 

symposium covered a wide range 

of DLR research that included an 

evaluation of UAM acceptance by 

the non-flying public and passenger, 

cabin and powertrain design, simulation capabilities, UAM network 

design, wildlife safety, and elderly 

passenger demand. Both NASA and 

DLR have made significant progress 

since the agreement was signed and 

gained new insights into the UAM 

market and challenges. In light of 

NASA’s respective progress, next 

steps involve incorporating the 

feedback from the review and more 

recent information about the UAM 

market to fine tune some current 

work to improve its relevance and 

impact to both NASA and DLR 

UAM research activities. For background information, visit: https://

dlr.expert/horizonuam2022/front/

index.php).

Report on Wildland 

Firefighting Operations 

Workshop Released by SWS 

POC: SUMMER BRANDT

On Dec. 6, the System-Wide Safety 

(SWS) project released the summary 

and findings from the Wildland 

Firefighting Operations Workshop 

held in March 2022. This workshop 

helped inform NASA of the relevant 

safety-related wildland firefighting concerns and aided the broader 

ecosystem in understanding the 

potential safety-oriented role NASA 

might play in this community. The 

workshop engaged the broader wildfire management ecosystem through 

a series of keynote talks, panels, and 

breakout sessions. More than 460 

participants engaged in the workshop 

to share information and identify areas of collaboration with the broader 

wildland firefighting community. 

Ideas were exchanged in operational 

firefighting, autonomous systems, 

policy and planning, and regulatory domains. Steve Clarke, NASA’s 

deputy associate administrator Aeronautics, and Cheryl Quinn, deputy 

director for AOSP, gave remarks on 

NASA’s portfolio of interests in wildland firefighting. Seventeen breakout 

sessions and four panels comprised 

of diverse stakeholders from federal, 

state, local, and tribal governments 

as well as industry and academia 

occurred during the workshop. Key 

findings of the workshop report 

containing the elicitation of safetyoriented stakeholder needs included: 

1) enhancing situation awareness is a 

safety priority, as getting the right information to the right decision makers at the right time is essential to 

enhancing operational safety and for 

enabling a common operating picture; 2) timely access to information 

that can be consolidated, integrated, 

and displayed would enhance safetycritical decision making is vital – this 

includes localized data fusion, along 

with information about data sources 

and quality issues that allow layered 

approaches to information display 

based on context; and 3) tailorable 

standards and a common operating 

picture, especially in the field, would 

enhance interagency cooperation in 

the wildland firefighting lifecycle. 

In addition, open standards would 

enhance safety, flexibility, and data 

and asset accessibility. The release 

of the report is intended to share 

with the community the information discussed and top findings from 

the sessions as well as to encourage 

further discussions. 

ACERO Attends Western 

Governors’ Association Winter 

Meeting 

POC: MARCUS JOHNSON

Joey Mercer, a member of the Advanced Capabilities for Emergency 
AOSP NEWSLETTER // OCT-DEC 2022 23

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

Response Operations (ACERO) 

project’s management team, attended the 2022 winter meeting of 

the Western Governors’ Association 

held in Phoenix on Dec. 6–7. Five 

United States governors and one 

governor-elect were in attendance, 

representing Arizona, Colorado, 

Oklahoma, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming. The group discussed wildland 

fires – specifically their relation to air 

quality and the states’ responsibilities in mitigating air quality. Mercer 

attended in support of ACERO 

to learn about the states’ current 

wildfire initiatives and determine 

possible opportunities for future engagement and partnerships. This was 

ACERO’s first interaction with the 

Western Governors’ Association. The 

project plans to continue engagement throughout the next year. 

HDV Radar Flight Tests and 

Authority to Operate Both 

Completed this Quarter

POC: LOUIS GLAAB

The Advanced Air Mobility project’s 

High Density Vertiplex (HDV) 

subproject team successfully completed a series of radar flight tests 

this past quarter. The first test, conducted Oct. 12, included NASA’s 

Lanciar UC-40 aircraft operated as 

a target vehicle for checkout and 

characterization of the surveillance 

systems being developed to support 

beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) 

operations. For this test, both the 

lightweight surveillance and target 

acquisition radar (LSTAR) and dual 

Dynetics Ground Aware GA-9120 

systems were tested. Both radar 

systems are complementary to each 

other and will also be augmented 

by a third radar being accessed 

through a Space Act Agreement 

with Longbow, Raytheon, the City 

of Hampton, and Hampton University. The Radar-2-B flight lasted 

approximately one hour and will be 

followed by several flights to fully 

install, checkout, and verify radar 

performance. These general aviation flights are crucial to provide the 

radar operators practical experience 

while gathering valuable tracking 

data. This data will be analyzed to 

better understand the capabilities 

of the systems and help make the 

configuration adjustments necessary 

for optimum results. 

NASA Lanciar UC-40 aircraft

ANRA Smart Skies Surveillance Display
24 AOSP NEWSLETTER // OCT-DEC 2022

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

Shortly following, during the week 

of Oct. 17, HDV’s surveillance team 

successfully updated the parameters 

for the Dynetics GA-9120 radars 

that are mounted on the gantry at 

NASA’s Langley Research Center in 

Virginia. Each radar panel is capable 

of covering a 90-degree sector and 

detecting and tracking aircraft within 

five nautical miles. The radar systems 

were updated with parameters from 

Dynetics to help remove ground 

clutter and focus on the aircraft. A 

target of opportunity was detected 

and tracked, that was likely a U.S. 

Air Force F-22 aircraft maneuvering 

in the landing pattern at Langley 

Air Force Base. In addition, during 

the week the output from the GA9120s were successfully routed to the 

ANRA Smart Skies Control (ANRA 

SS CTR) system that will be used 

to provide an airspace surveillance 

picture for the small Unmanned 

Aircraft Systems (sUAS) operations 

team during planned BVLOS operations. HDV also conducted sUAS 

flight checkout of the Safe2Ditch 

autonomous contingency management system to acquire performance 

data to detect and geolocate people 

moving within a ditch site. Detecting 

movement in the ditch site is critical 

to determine if a remote landing site 

is safe to use. Other elements tested 

in flight included updated firmware 

for the FreeFly Alta-8 octocopters 

and an upgraded radio control link 

to use during the build-up to BVLOS operations.

On Dec. 8, the HDV team performed the Radar-2-3 flight test. 

This flight test was performed in order to acquire data and operational 

experience for the HDV surveillance 

system that is being created to enable BVLOS sUAS operations. The 

HDV surveillance system consists 

of the 1) LSTAR system installed on 

Building B1244; 2) Dual Ground 

Aware GA-9120 panel radars mounted on the gantry; 3) Ground-based 

uAvionix Ping 2020 ADS-B receiver; 

4) Ground-based Flight Alarm 

receiver; and 5) ANRA Smart Skies 

Control sensor integration, fusion, 

and display system. NASA’s Lanciar 

UC-40 aircraft was again used for 

this effort and was the fourth flight 

test performed to build up the performance and capability of the HDV 

surveillance system. Tracking perforSurveillance displays supporting the Radar 2-3 flight tests
AOSP NEWSLETTER // OCT-DEC 2022 25

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

mance of the GA-9120s and LSTAR 

radar in their latest configurations 

were the primary test objectives. 

Preliminary results were encouraging 

with data analysis currently underway. BVLOS operations are planned 

for Fiscal Year 2023. Another major accomplishment this week was 

the completion of an authority to 

operate request to enable continued 

usage of the Botlink 4G cell telemetry system for sUAS operations at 

NASA. The Botlink is essential for 

plans to perform BVLOS operations at NASA. Part of the challenge 

recently revealed to HDV was 

that Botlink leverages some cloudcomputing resources while not being 

FedRAMP certified. This is not 

surprising as FedRAMP certification 

incurs significant resources and is 

usually associated with much larger 

companies. Through extensive work 

and support from Sean Kenney from 

the Research Services Directorate at 

NASA Langley, a comprehensive description of the Botlink system was 

created with excellent engagement 

from Botlink. The result is a clear 

path forward to acquire an authority 

to operate and continue to use this 

essential telemetry link.

SWS Participates on AEWG 

Crosscutting Working Group 

Meetings

POC: MISTY DAVIES AND KYLE ELLIS

The System-Wide Safety (SWS) 

project participated on two separate 

Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) Ecosystem Working Groups (AEWG) 

Crosscutting Working Group meetings this past quarter. The first one 

was held Oct. 18 and focused on 

runtime assurance recommendations. SWS researcher Ganesh Pai 

presented background information 

and discussed recommendations 

for robustness and inclusion of 

runtime monitoring with failover 

plans in civil aviation. These recommendations were based on decades 

of NASA research and are part of a 

multi-year effort to provide recommendations that will allow for the 

inclusion of untrusted components 

in aviation, such as machinelearning systems. This material has 

been sent to the FAA and the Flight 

Safety Foundation for feedback and 

could form a basis for future standards. Misty Davies provided the 

introductory and closing remarks. 

Alwyn Goodloe was a substantial 

contributor to this effort. The audience was also provided with the 

opportunity to engage with suggestions and comments. 

The second meeting was on Dec. 

8 and focused on discussing the 

concept of an In-Time Aviation 

Safety Management System. A brief 

overview was provided by Lance 

Prinzel, followed by the other panelists, including Misty Davies, Kyle 

Ellis, Jim Ackerson of the NASA 

Aeronautics Research Institute, 

Deborah Kirkman of the Flight 

Safety Foundation, and Paul Krois 

of Crown Consulting. Questions 

were solicited from the audience, 

prompting a vibrant discussion 

amongst the panelists, providing 

insight into key topics of interest 

within the aviation industry and 

opinions on near-term wins and 

long-term visions coming together 

to transform global airspace. This 

engagement is helping NASA shape 

its research to best address industry 

needs while answering key questions from government regulators. 

The AEWG Crosscutting Working Group meeting was very well 

attended by members of industry 

and government, with more than 

50 active participants in the online 

meeting forum and an additional 

50+ participants viewing on YouTube. Each of these meetings were 

hosted by the NASA Aeronautics 

Research Institute. 

Space Act Annex Signed for 

ATM-X CNS Research for AAM 

Operations with ODOT

POC: RAFAEL APAZA

On Dec. 22, a two-year agreement 

was established between NASA’s 

Glenn Research Center in Cleveland and the Ohio Department of 

Transportation (ODOT) to share 

Advanced Air Mobility (AAM)-

related flight test information in 

Ohio, which will benefit NASA’s Air 

Traffic Management – Exploration 

(ATM-X) project. ODOT personnel will be given access to NASA’s 

research and flight test planning 

activities, as well as the results of 
26 AOSP NEWSLETTER // OCT-DEC 2022

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

upcoming AAM communications 

flight test activities, which will 

benefit ODOT’s efforts in this area. 

The intended result of this annex 

is to improve information sharing 

between both parties and to identify 

opportunities for future research 

and flight test activities that may 

best utilize the assets and abilities of 

both parties, which will be mutually 

beneficial. Work on this agreement 

will start with a kick-off meeting 

later this year. 
AOSP NEWSLETTER // OCT-DEC 2022 27

RECOGNITION

AAM Participates in the 

eVTOL Insights Conference 

POC: STARR GINN

Starr Ginn, the Advanced Air 

Mobility (AAM) project’s lead 

strategist, served as the opening 

keynote speaker at the electric 

Vertical Takeoff and Landing 

(eVTOL) Insights Conference 

held Oct. 10–11 in New York City. 

Closing the conference with a talk 

titled “After Elevate, the evolving 

Urban Air Mobility landscape,” 

included speakers such as Nikhil 

Goel, and Mark Moore and Ian 

Villa from Whisper Aero – all of 

whom worked previously for Uber 

Elevate. There was substantial 

vehicle representation at the 

conference including companies 

such as Elroy Air, Jaunt Mobility, 

Vertical Aerospace, Piasecki Aircraft 

Corporation, Eve Holding, Archer 

and many infrastructure companies. 

The theme of the day focused on 

operations and infrastructure. The 

SMG Consulting Group that 

provides the AAM reality index, 

provided a forecasting cash flow 

for all public companies. For 

more information, visit: https://

evtolinsights.com/2022/07/strongline-up-of-speakers-confirmed-forevtol-insights-new-york-conferencetaking-place-from-october-10-11/

ATM-X Participates at Edge 

Computing World Conference 

POC: SHIVANJLI SHARMA

Shivanjli Sharma, Air Traffic 

Management – Exploration (ATMX) deputy project manager, served 

as a guest speaker at the Edge 

Computing World Conference 

on Oct. 10–12 in Santa Clara, 

California. This conference 

brought together Edge end users 

and ecosystem service providers 

for executive insights, case studies, 

and networking, as well as free 

Edge developer education. Sharma 

spoke in a session titled “Intelligent 

Infrastructure Summit.” The 

focus of the conversation was on 

Advanced Air Mobility and how 

integrated intelligent infrastructure 

will enable new services for the 

data age, by underpinning new 

growth, supporting new job 

opportunities, and connecting the 

unconnected ecosystem participants. 

Starr Ginn provides opening keynote speech at the eVTOL Insights Conference
28 AOSP NEWSLETTER // OCT-DEC 2022

RECOGNITION

ATM-X Participates on 

Panel at Doon Insights Auto/

Mobility Tech 8 Conference 

POC: SHIVANJLI SHARMA

Shivanjli Sharma, Air Traffic 

Management – Exploration 

(ATM-X) deputy project manager, 

participated in the Doon Insights 

Auto Mobility Tech 8 Conference 

at Bonny Doon, California on 

Oct. 26. Sharma was a guest 

speaker on a panel titled “New 

Directions in Aviation” during 

which investors, new Advanced 

Air Mobility entrants, and existing 

aviation service providers discussed 

future trends in aviation and the 

technology needed across vehicles, 

airspace, and infrastructure needed 

to support a system of systems 

ecosystem required to enable a 

diverse Advanced Air Mobility field. 

SWS Researcher Gives 

Opening Address at the First 

IEEE International WAAM 

POC: ALWYN GOODLOE

System-Wide Safety (SWS) 

project researcher Alwyn Goodloe 

provided the opening talk of the 

first Institute of Electrical and 

Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 

International Workshop on Assured 

Autonomy, Artificial Intelligence, 

and Machine Learning (WAAM) 

in Charlotte on Oct. 31. The 

presentation titled “Assuring 

Safety-Critical Machine Learning 

Enabled Systems: Challenges 

and Promise” was well received 

and generated many questions 

and offline discussions. As an 

interesting side note, a talk from 

a doctoral candidate at the Naval 

Postgraduate School highlighted 

interest and use of SWS-developed 

tools FRET and Copilot Runtime 

Verification Framework within his 

group at Naval Postgraduate School. 

Additionally, Goodloe has been 

asked to submit the paper as an 

IEEE Computer magazine article. 

SWS Project Members 

Attend IASS 

POC: MICHAEL VINCENT

System-Wide Safety (SWS) 

project members Jon Holbrook 

and Michael Vincent participated 

in the annual International Air 

Safety Summit (IASS) sponsored 

by the Flight Safety Foundation 

in Atlanta on Nov. 7-9. Holbrook, 

the technical lead for human 

contributions to safety, gave a 

presentation titled “Learning from 

All Operations - The Analysis 

Approach” and was also a panelist 

during the event. The presentation 

and panel discussion that followed 

outlined a framework for safety 

learning that was developed in 

collaboration with the Flight Safety 

Foundation. This safety learning 

framework will influence future air 

transport operations by improving 

training standards to reinforce pilot 

behaviors that are not normally 

Shivanjli Shrama participating on panel at Doon Insights Auto Mobility Tech 8 Conference
AOSP NEWSLETTER // OCT-DEC 2022 29

RECOGNITION

captured in safety management 

systems. The annual IASS 

conference attracts representatives 

from the airlines, business, and 

future Advanced Air Mobility 

operators, as well as safety service 

providers from around the planet. 

The keynote speaker for IASS this 

year was acting-FAA Administrator 

Billy Nolen, who highlighted the 

need for in-time safety systems for 

future air transport. Executives 

from Delta, American, and United 

Airlines also gave presentations 

to those in attendance. 

SWS Research Highlighted 

at the NASA Langley 

Colloquium and Sigma Series 

POC: CHAD STEPHENS

System-Wide Safety (SWS) project 

researchers Chad Stephens and 

Alan Pope were invited to present 

their work at the Colloquium Series 

held by NASA’s Langley Research 

Center in Virginia on Nov. 15. This 

activity is important to the goals 

of SWS Human Contributions to 

Safety research. Specifically, the 

results of this activity supported 

extending Human Contributions to 

Safety analysis methods applicable 

to the recently completed humanin-the-loop flight simulation 

Soteria study. A recording can be 

obtained shortly at the following 

link: https://colloqsigma.larc.

nasa.gov/recent-past-lectures/. 

SWS Researcher Participates 

in SuperComputing 2022 Panel 

POC: MATTEO CORBETTA

System-Wide Safety (SWS) project 

researcher Matteo Corbetta 

participated in the Birds of a 

Feather panel session at the 

SuperComputing 2022 Conference 

on Nov. 17. The panel was titled 

“Physics-Informed Machine 

Learning meets High-Performance 

Computing: State of the Art 

and Challenges for Widespread 

Adoption.” The Birds of a Feather 

panel are sessions where attendees 

can openly discuss current topics of 

interests for the high-performance 

computing community. Physicsinformed machine learning is a 

promising research field attempting 

at merging physical and prior 

knowledge into machine learning 

models and vice-versa – thus 

taking advantage of the existing 

knowledge about a system, and the 

flexibility of new machine learning 

algorithms. Almost 12,000 people 

were in attendance in total for the 

conference and approximately 50 

people were in attendance for the 

panel. The link for the conference 

is: https://www.nas.nasa.gov/

SC22/home.html. The link for 

the panel session is: https://sc22.

supercomputing.org/presentation/?i

d=bof169&sess=sess370

SWS Research Presented 

at Bi-Annual Multi-Agency 

Range Safety Group 

POC: EVAN DILL

On Nov. 29, System-Wide Safety 

(SWS) project researcher Evan Dill 

was invited to speak to the Range 

Safety Group consisting of NASA 

and Department of Defense (DoD) 

representatives. In attendance were 

range safety managers from various 

DoD and NASA installations. The 

focus of the interchange was the 

potential use of SWS research 

to help in the approval and 

deployment of non-deterministic 

or highly complex systems on 

NASA/DoD flight test ranges. 

Topics included assured vehicle 

conformance via the Safeguard 

system, operational hazard 

mitigation through various services, 

functions, and capabilities, as well as 

runtime assurance methods. 

ODIN-Fire Presented at 

TFRSAC Fall Meeting 

POC: PETER MEHLITZ

On Nov. 30, Peter Mehlitz of the 

robust software engineering group 

at NASA’s Ames Research Center in 

California demonstrated the “Open 

Data Integration for Wildland Fire 

Management” (ODIN-fire) system 

at the Tactical Fire Remote Sensing 

Advisory Committee (TFRSAC) 

autumn meeting. The ODIN-fire 
30 AOSP NEWSLETTER // OCT-DEC 2022

RECOGNITION

system is a software architecture to 

create field deployable servers that 

can import, process, and display 

an open number of wildland 

fire related data sources such as 

weather, fire location, and nearreal-time location of vehicles and 

personnel. TFRSAC is the primary 

biannual event for the wildland 

fire stakeholder community, 

bringing together federal and state 

agencies, research organizations, 

and commercial vendors. This was 

a joint presentation with Delphire, 

Inc., an early adopter of ODINfire who became a collaborator as a 

result of the SWS project’s Wildland 

Firefighting Operations Workshop 

held in March 2022. 

ACERO Supports NASA’s 

Climate Summit 

POC: MARCUS JOHNSON

Marcus Johnson, project manager 

of the Advanced Capabilities for 

Emergency Response Operations 

(ACERO) project, co-led a 

breakout session at NASA’s 

Climate Summit held Dec. 9. The 

breakout session was conducted 

along with Daniel Lockney, the 

agency’s Technology Transfer 

Program executive. The session 

was titled “Rethinking NASA 

Technologies to Address Climate 

Challenges.” The virtual event was 

intended to invite everyone at 

NASA together to begin a broader 

open dialogue about the agency’s 

role in researching and addressing 

climate change issues for the 

agency’s mission and for humanity. 

Autumn 2022 American 

Geophysical Union Meeting 

POC: JOSEPH COUGHLAN

Joseph Coughlan, System-Wide 

Safety’s senior technical advisor 

for Autonomy, presented a paper 

at the American Geophysical 

Union meeting on Dec. 12–16. 

Coughlan’s paper described Open 

Data Integration for Wildland 

Fire Management (ODIN-fire) 

low-latency features, and nearreal-time/low-data-latency data 

and tools for Earth science 

applications. The ODIN-fire 

system is a software architecture 

to create field deployable servers 

that can import, process, and 

display an open number of 

wildland fire related data sources 

such as weather, fire location, and 

near-real-time location of vehicles 

and personnel. This session was 

co-chaired by NASA’s David Green. 
National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Headquarters

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Washington, DC 20024

www.nasa.gov/aeroresearch

www.nasa.gov