National Aeronautics and Space Administration

www.nasa.gov

AOSP Newsletter

Airspace Operations and Safety Program (AOSP)

JUL-SEP 2023 | Quarter 4

UAM Team Completes AIS 

this Quarter

3

PAAV Data Collection Runs 

Complete at NASA Langley

15
2 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2023

AOSP IN THE NEWS

Reliable Robotics Gets FAA 

Approval To Test Automated 

Aircraft Systems

Reuters (7/20) reports “Reliable 

Robotics, a Silicon Valley startup 

aiming to automate conventional 

fixed-wing planes, has received 

approval from the Federal Aviation 

Administration to proceed with 

its plan to test and certify fully 

automated aircraft systems, the 

company said on Thursday. ‘We’re 

three to four years out from being 

able to remotely operate these 

aircraft at any kind of reasonable 

scale,’ said Robert Rose, co-founder 

and chief executive of the 

Mountain View, California-based 

company which aims to license 

its autonomous flight system to 

other companies. ... NASA is also 

working with Reliable systems 

engineers on advanced air mobility 

research and said test data will 

be used to evaluate flight path 

procedures for future aircraft.”

Want to Hop on An Electric 

Air Taxi? U.S. Officials Urge 

More Attention on Vertiports, 

Community Acceptance

Aerospace America (7/24) reports 

“as electric air taxi developers get 

closer to certification of their 

aircraft, a host of U.S. government 

agencies and departments are 

working to lay the groundwork to 

ensure the airspace and American 

society are ready to accommodate 

them. Complicating matters, use 

cases for electric vertical and takeoff 

landing (eVTOL) vehicles are 

still speculative, said Peter Irvine, 

the executive lead for aviation 

policy at the U.S. Department of 

Transportation. ... Parimal (PK) 

Kopardekar, director of NASA’s 

Aeronautics Research Institute in 

Washington, D.C., said air taxi 

developers and operators will fail 

financially unless they can quickly 

build up to high-frequency flights 

requiring capable infrastructure and 

air traffic management.”

Deadline Approaches For 

Drone Identification Rule

Aerospace America (8/3) reports “the 

Remote Identification technology 

that all operators of business and 

hobbyist drones in the United States 

must have on their aircraft starting 

next month is primarily meant to 

aid police and citizens who want 

to know who owns a drone flying 

nearby that might be maneuvering 

unsafely. Technologists, however, 

see the approach as the potential 

precursor to a tool for managing 

the long-predicted explosion of 

drone traffic for package delivery, 

infrastructure monitoring and other 

applications. ... But FAA and NASA 

have researched ways to use Remote 

ID data to create an unmanned 

aerial system (UAS) traffic 

management, or UTM, network.”

Polaris Aero Receives NASA 

Small Business Innovation 

Research Award

AP (8/14) reports “Polaris Aero LLC, 

a leader in aviation safety software, 

has received a NASA Phase I Small 

Business Innovation Research 

(SBIR) award in support of NASA’s 

System-Wide Safety Project within 

the Airspace Operations and Safety 

Program. With the award, Polaris 

Aero will research the integration 

of artificial intelligence (A.I.) into 

its cloud-based VOCUS Safety 

Intelligence Platform.”
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2023 3

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

UAM Team Completes 

AIS this Quarter 

POC: KENNETH FREEMAN AND SAVVY VERMA

The Air Traffic Management – 

eXploration project’s Urban Air 

Mobility (UAM) subproject team 

successfully completed its Air 

Traffic Management Interoperability 

Simulation (AIS) this past quarter. 

During the week of Aug. 7–11, the 

UAM Airspace Procedures and 

Design team conducted human-inthe-loop shakedown testing. The test 

was conducted at the FutureFlight 

Central facility at NASA’s Ames 

Research Center in California. 

Shakedown testing followed an AIS 

technical interchange meeting and 

tabletop exercise where procedures 

and information exchange 

requirements were explored between 

air traffic control and the pilot in 

command for current-day and 

mid-term UAM operations. The 

exercise focused on use cases and 

routes developed jointly by NASA 

and Joby Aviation for the Dallas 

area. Preliminary data analysis from 

the AIS shakedown showed that 

corridors and modified procedures 

can contribute to scalability 

and reduced communication 

The AIS simulation activity.
4 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2023

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

requirements for some chosen use 

cases. Following shakedown testing, 

data collection runs commenced and 

were completed on Sep. 22. The data 

collection exercise evaluated notional 

UAM procedures and information 

exchange requirements with the 

goal of testing the experiment 

matrix that included current-day 

and mid-term conditions. Data 

collected consisted of track data, 

audio, videos, surveys, and debriefs. 

The team will analyze the data and 

report out in the next few months.

DIP Team Releases 

Platform Version 1.5

POC: GILBERT WU

On July 5, the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration 

project’s Digital Information 

Platform (DIP) subproject team 

released Version 1.5 of DIP to 

its internal and external partners. 

The DIP team aims to establish 

an easily accessible cloud-based 

digital information platform that 

a community of data and service 

providers and operators use to 

gather and access both real-time 

and historical data. The platform 

enables users to leverage advanced 

data-driven digital services 

to promote efficient aviation 

operations. The new features in 

this version include fused National 

Airspace System data based on event 

processing and filtering, access to 

data to support timeline views, and 

a catalog redesign. The team will 

continue to incrementally update 

the software and push out future 

releases to stakeholders and the 

aviation community. DIP can 

be found at the following URL: 

https://dip.amesaero.nasa.gov. 

Wisk Aero Visits NASA Ames 

for Briefings on ATM-X 

POC: JEFF HOMOLA

On July 7, representatives from Wisk 

Aero visited NASA’s Ames Research 

Center in California, where they met 

with the Air Traffic Management 

– eXploration (ATM-X) project 

team. Their discussions focused on 

potential collaboration on human 

factors research related to the Wisk 

operational use case and included 

various laboratory demonstrations. 

Given that Wisk is pursuing a 

fully automated vehicle, the Wisk 

and ATM-X teams discussed user 

interface requirements for automated 

Wisk Aero visits the Airspace Operations Lab.

Wisk Aero team visits FutureFlight Central.
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2023 5

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

operations as well as information 

flow needs for increasingly MultiVehicle Control (m:N) operations. 

The Wisk team were given tours of 

FutureFlight Central, the Airspace 

Operations Lab, the HumanAutonomy Teaming Lab, and the 

Vertical Motion Simulator. The day 

concluded with a brainstorming 

discussion of the next steps for a 

future collaboration between Wisk 

and NASA. 

ATM-X Conducts NASA/

FAA Quarterly Review 

POC: SHAWN ENGELLAND AND KEN FREEMAN

On July 11–12, the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration 

(ATM-X) project conducted a 

two-day quarterly review with 

the FAA. The review was a hybrid 

meeting the NASA Aeronautics 

Research Institute hosted at NASA’s 

Ames Research Center in California. 

The first day consisted of various 

briefings from the FAA, including 

“Info-Centric National Airspace 

System (NAS) Landscapes.” This 

was followed by presentations on 

their Flight Information Exchange 

Model, Flight and Flow Information 

for a Collaborative Environment, 

Natural Language Processing, 

Responsible Artificial Intelligence, 

Multi-Regional Trajectory Based 

Operations Live Demonstration 

project, and Connected Aircraft 

Trajectory Information activities. 

This was followed by the ATM-X 

project’s Digital Information 

Platform subproject briefings, and 

a Sky for All technical interchange 

meeting. The second day began 

with the FAA briefing their Urban 

Air Mobility (UAM) concept 

of operations and providing an 

overview of their UAM Airspace 

Management Demonstration 

project, including their Low Density 

Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) 

Communication Evaluation and 

UAS Service Supplier-Provider 

of Services for UAM Capability 

Gap Analysis. These were followed 

by presentations on the ATM-X 

project’s UAM subproject, including 

updates on the Operational 

Integration Assessment, the ATM 

Interoperability Simulation, Provider 

of Services for UAM Prototype 

development, and flight activity 

between NASA, Joby, and the 

U.S. Air Force’s Agility Prime 

team. The meeting wrapped with 

an overview of the Advanced Air 

Mobility project’s High Density 

Vertiplex subproject flight test. The 

next quarterly review is planned for 

autumn 2023. 

Four New Technologies Result 

from WSDM Multi-Phase SBIR 

POC: RICHARD MOGFORD, ROBERT MAH

AND STEVE YOUNG

On July 12, the System-Wide Safety 

project received final combined 

presentations for Phase II, Phase 

II-E, and Phase III Small Business 

Innovation Research (SBIR) efforts, 

all focused on Weather Sensor 

and Data Monitoring (WSDM). 

ResilienX led this activity with 

support from TruWeather Solutions 

and The Longbow Group. The 

technical point of contact for 

this research is Richard Mogford, 

who has served in this role since 

Phase I began in 2020. Hazardous 

weather and winds, thermals, 

and turbulence pose an everpresent challenge to small drones 

and future Urban Air Mobility 

systems. This SBIR effort resulted 

in the development of four new 

technologies, including: 1) SPOTON, which leverages computational 

fluid dynamics models in 

computing an optimal wind 

sensor deployment configuration, 

thereby enabling more accurate 

wind monitoring both at and near 

a vertiport; 2) FASTWIND, a 

machine learning based emulator 

of a custom computable document 

format model; 3) WSDM, a 

software application that ingests 

data from a network of sensors, 

and determines which, if any, are 

behaving “poorly”; and 4) BEWindEE, a battery estimator 

for wind energy efficiency. This 

software service is designed to 

utilize technology from ResilienX 

and NASA – along with microweather data models and forecasting 

from TruWeather – to predict the 

impacts of urban winds on the 

battery life for commercial drone 

operations. This project has since 

been selected for NASA’s Civilian 

Commercialization Readiness Pilot 

program with matching funds being 

provided by the Air Force’s Agility 

Prime program. This effort directly 
6 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2023

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

supports all current technical 

challenges in the System-Wide 

Safety project. 

HDV Completes VIP Demo Day 

POC: LOU GLAAB

On July 14, the Advanced Air 

Mobility project’s High Density 

Vertiplex (HDV) subproject team 

completed a highly successful 

VIP Demo Day for the recently 

completed Scalable Autonomous 

Operations (SAO) flight test. The 

demonstrations showcased two 

scenarios used for the SAO test 

and included approximately 25 inperson attendees along with another 

20 virtual attendees, including 

NASA management. Demonstrations included the nominal baseline 

and the off-nominal missedapproach scenarios using three 

live small drones augmented with 

simulated aircraft. 

SWS Participates on Task 

Force for Multi-Vehicle 

Operations Resource Guide 

POC: NATASHA NEOGI

On July 14, Natasha Neogi and 

other System-Wide Safety (SWS) 

project researchers attended the 

kickoff meeting for the American 

Institute of Aeronautics and 

Astronautics (AIAA) Advanced Air 

Mobility task force. This meeting 

was a follow-on activity focused 

on supporting multi-vehicle 

operations, with Kelley Hashemi as 

the lead. The goal of the activity is 

to create a “resource guide” that is 

delivered to AIAA for distribution 

by spring 2024. Other SWS project 

researchers attending the meeting 

included Mike Politowicz, Ken 

Goodrich, Megan Chandarana, 

Corey Ippolito, and Jay Shively. 

SWS Project Collaborating 

with ODOT

POC: EVAN DILL, RUSSELL GILABERT

AND STEVE YOUNG

System-Wide Safety (SWS) project 

researchers are leveraging a Space 

Act Agreement with the Ohio 

Department of Transportation 

(ODOT) through the National 

Advanced Air Mobility Center of 

Excellence. The primary goal is to 

conduct a set of collaborative flight 

operations in Ohio focused on 

advancing the concept of an InTime Aviation Safety Management 

System. SWS researchers are 

working on defining flight test 

system requirements, development 

of relevant scenarios, and gaining 

all necessary internal approvals 

toward a full flight campaign during 

summer 2024. As a secondary goal 

of this collaboration, SWS subject 

matter experts are participating 

in a set of virtual drone flight 

scenarios and providing feedback 

on ODOT’s draft procedures for 

flight operations as well as valuable 

insight to ODOT to help craft 

relevant, well-informed guidelines 

for flight operations. 

IASMS Closeout Event 

Conducted at NASA Ames

POC: NIKUNJ OZA, CHAD STEPHENS

AND ABIGAIL GLENN-CHASE

On July 18, the System-Wide Safety 

project conducted a closeout of its 

Technical Challenge 1, In-Time 

Terminal Risk Management. The 

event was hosted by the NASA 

Aeronautics Research Institute at 

NASA’s Ames Research Center in 

California and was broadcasted 

virtually via YouTube. The purpose 

was to highlight the research 

and progress toward an In-Time 

Aviation Safety Management 

System (IASMS) for commercial 

operations. The agenda included an 

overview of the System-Wide Safety 

project; perspectives from the FAA, 

airlines and airframers; briefings 

on human performance and 

fatigue and human contributions 

to safety; roundtable discussions 

on “Integrating Human Factors 

Work in the New Era of Aviation” 

and “Building on NASA’s Safety 

Foundation in a New Era of 

Commercial Aviation”; and a 

discussion on machine learning 

algorithms. There were more than 

200 registrants at the event with 

approximately 40 people attending 

in person. New technologies 

developed in Technical Challenge 

1 identified emerging risks and 

monitored safety margins before an 

accident occurs, not after. Powered 

by prognostic and predictive risk 

assessment algorithms and human 

6
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2023 7

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

factors research, this work will both 

improve today’s safety management 

systems and help us shape future 

operational systems.

AAM Research Capabilities 

Identified to Help Enable 

FAA Implementation Plan 

POC: IAN LEVITT

The Air Traffic Management – 

eXploration project’s Urban Air 

Mobility Airspace Management 

subproject is leading a joint effort 

with the FAA’s William J. Hughes 

Technical Center (WJHTC) 

and industry representatives to 

conduct an operational integration 

assessment. The purpose of 

this effort is to define a mature 

Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) 

architecture and to identify where 

more research is needed for safe 

integration. An update for this work 

was presented to the WJHTC and 

NASA management on July 18. The 

operational integration assessment 

is conceptualizing and evaluating 

a realistic evolution of Urban Air 

Mobility operational scenarios 

fully integrated into the National 

Airspace System – leveraging a 

joint simulation environment in 

which NASA research software 

and concepts can interact with the 

FAA’s high-fidelity, high-technologyreadiness-level operational software 

and procedures. NASA will provide 

the joint test environment, as well 

as the Advanced Trajectory Services 

Toolkit for Integrated Ground and 

Air Research (ATS-TIGAR). This 

allows for rapid prototyping and 

evaluation of new operational 

concepts, including new aspects 

such as vertiport operations, fleet 

management, and strategic conflict 

management for multiple operators 

managing hundreds of operations. 

Per the FAA’s request, ATS-TIGAR 

is in the process of completing the 

technical transfer process to fill 

critical gaps in the WJHTC’s test 

and evaluation infrastructure. 

ATM-X Hosts a UAS ATC Voice 

Communication Meeting

POC: KURT SWIERINGA

On July 19, the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration 

(ATM-X) project hosted an 

Uncrewed Aircraft System 

(UAS) Air Traffic Control (ATC) 

voice communication technical 

interchange meeting at NASA 

Headquarters in Washington, DC. 

Participants included Reliable 

Robotics, FAA partners, and RTCA 

and discussions occurred on voice 

communication requirements and 

limitations, as well as test results. 

The next steps include discussions 

to establish voice requirements and 

plans for future demonstrations. 

AOSP Hosts Meeting for 

Remotely Supervised 

Operations 

POC: SHIVANJLI SHARMA

On July 20, representatives 

from AOSP met with industry 

In-Time Terminal Area Risk Management closeout event.
8 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2023

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

partners at NASA Headquarters 

in Washington, DC to discuss 

future collaboration opportunities 

with the Air Traffic Management 

– eXploration project’s Pathfinding 

for Airspace with Autonomous 

Vehicles (PAAV) subproject. 

Industry partners included Collins 

Aerospace, Reliable Robotics, Wisk, 

and ITS America. The PAAV team 

updated its objectives to reflect 

an updated skill set that is now 

present given the consolidation of 

the PAAV, Automated Flight and 

Contingency Management, and 

National Campaign Integration 

of Automated Systems activities, 

as well as a much tighter scope 

with a focus on requirements 

and standards needed to enable 

remotely supervised fixed-wing 

operations for cargo and passenger 

transport. To support these new 

objectives, this meeting had a 

goal to discuss forming a coalition 

of partners to create a swath of 

airspace and infrastructure at a key 

site – enabling consistent research 

and development flight testing for 

increasingly automated operations. 

The use cases include remotely 

supervised cargo operations, 

remotely supervised passenger 

regional operations, increasingly 

automated integrated flight 

concepts that require an integrated 

air/ground architecture for detect 

and avoid, and the associated 

key infrastructure services that 

are required to enable routine 

operations for these use cases. 

SWS Researcher Participates 

at SAE’s Committees Meeting 

POC: STEVE YOUNG, LILLY SPIRKOVSKA 

AND EVAN DILL

On July 24–28, System-Wide Safety 

(SWS) project researcher Mallory 

Graydon participated in the 2023 

Quarter 2 plenary meeting of 

SAE’s S-18, S-18A, and S-18H 

committees at SAE’s headquarters. 

S-18 has completed 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, are likely to be 

released later this year. S-18, 

S-18A, and S-18H committees 

are 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 drones; 4) the 

interaction between human factorsrelated assurance activities and the 

safety assessment process; and 

5) the use of tools and modeling 

in aircraft development. 

AOSP Participates at EAA 

AirVenture Oshkosh

POC: WILLIAM CHAN, MICHAEL VINCENT

AND KAREN CATE

AOSP’s projects were well represented 

at the Experimental Aircraft 

Association (EAA) AirVenture 

Oshkosh event. Approximately 

677,000 people attended and 10,000 

aircraft flew in. Teams from the 

Advanced Air Mobility (AAM), Air 

Traffic Management – eXploration 

(ATM-X), Advanced Capabilities 

for Emergency Response Operations 

(ACERO), and System-Wide Safety 

(SWS) projects staffed the NASA 

pavilion, which had close to 43,000 

visitors during the week-long event. 

AAM project representation included 

Jake Schaefer and Faisal Omar, 

who provided a series of briefings 

discussing High Density Vertiplex 

research, test, and evaluation. 

Feedback was extremely positive. 

ATM-X staff showcased research in 

sustainable aviation in the Digital 

Information Platform and the 

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) Airspace 

Management subprojects. The Digital 

Information Platform team showed 

how their work improves departure 

operations using the Collaborative 

Digital Departure Routing capability, 

which was supported with a short 

video. Visitors were able to fly in a 

fixed-base UAM simulator used to 

show how UAM aircraft could fly in 

the National Airspace System. The 

simulation setup included not only 

8
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2023 9

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

the Flyer, but also the Toolkit for 

Integrated Ground and Air Research, 

which simulates a UAM fleet operator, 

mission planner, and vertiport 

scheduler as well as the Detect and 

Avoid in the Cockpit research tool.

ACERO team members Bushara 

Dosa and Vince Varouh discussed 

the project’s efforts with the public. 

Each day, they presented a 10-minute 

ACERO spotlight talk featuring the 

Unmanned Aircraft System Pilot kit 

(UASP-kit), which helps increase 

drone pilot airspace awareness in or 

near wildland fires. The UASP-kit 

was developed using off-the-shelf 

technologies and NASA expertise 

with the intent to support situational 

awareness in making live drone 

operations safer and more effective 

around wildland fires, which could 

significantly advance aviation 

operations. The UASP-kit was well 

received by the aviation community 

at the show. The team collected 

suggestions for other aerial-operations 

support tools, including monitoring 

the sky for drones flying at low 

altitude for agricultural crop-dusting 

missions and railroad track safety 

inspections. ACERO is leading an 

interagency working group to assess 

future wildland fire needs and identify 

the concepts and technologies 

needed to address these challenges for 

wildland fire response.

SWS project members shared with 

the public the experience of a new 

virtual reality scenario and answered 

questions about the need for safety 

in the future of aviation. The virtual 

reality experience demonstrates 

how an In-Time Aviation Safety 

Management System (IASMS) could 

enable small drones to perform public 

good missions. The project hosted an 

interactive daily demonstration

presenting the topic “How will 

air taxis and drones be safe?” that 

covered how services, functions, 

and capabilities work; how SWS is 

testing them; and how they would 

be used in future safety assessments 

for AAM. The SWS project’s virtual 

reality IASMS experience, along with 

streaming video B-roll, showcased 

safety software developed using 

SWS research. Bob Cabana, NASA’s 

associate administrator, stopped 

by to experience the SWS virtual 

demonstration, initiating a very 

positive discussion on the safe 

transformation of aviation.
10 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2023

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

SWS Attends August 

JIMDAT Meeting 

POC: LANCE PRINZEL

On July 21–Aug. 2, the SystemWide Safety (SWS) project’s senior 

technical advisor Lance Prinzel 

attended the Joint Implementation 

Measurement Data Analysis Team 

(JIMDAT) meeting at Boeing’s 

headquarters in Virginia. 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 FAA’s 

Aviation Safety Information 

Analysis and Sharing (ASIAS) 

system, also identifies emerging 

risks and additional areas of study. 

Although the proceedings of the 

JIMDAT meetings are sensitive 

and details are not reportable, it 

can be reported that the SWS 

project provided several critical 

briefings to JIMDAT to secure 

new research safety enhancements. 

SWS’s primary role is to provide 

subject matter expertise addressing 

current aviation safety issues and 

supporting JIMDAT’s activities 

and assigned actions. At this 

past meeting, Prinzel presented 

a briefing on text data mining 

and natural language processing 

of diverse aviation safety data 

sources to include NASA’s 

ongoing and planned research and 

development and future JIMDAT 

recommendations. At the meeting, 

SWS was invited to serve on 

the CAST Safety Management 

System tiger team. In addition, 

plans for a technical interchange 

meeting with the ASIAS team was 

tentatively scheduled for Sep. 13 at 

MITRE’s headquarters in Virginia. 

The meeting will be focused on 

machine learning and advanced 

data analytics of aviation safety 

data. Finally, through continued 

stakeholder engagement with the 

Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), 

SWS was invited to contribute 

ALPA journal articles on SWS 

research and participate in the 

ALPA Annual Safety Summit to 

be held Sep. 14–15. A meeting 

between SWS and ALPA leadership 

is planned for August. NASA 

continues to work multiple safety 

enhancements and other actions 

in support of JIMDAT and CAST, 

leveraging the SWS project’s (and 

NASA’s generally) internationally 

renowned experts in aviation safety. 

ATM-X Participates in the 

FAA Drone Symposium 

POC: JOSEPH RIOS, ABHAY BORADE

AND JEFF HOMOLA

On Aug. 1–2, the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration 

(ATM-X) project team attended 

and supported the FAA and 

Association for Uncrewed Vehicle 

Systems International’s Drone 

Symposium in Baltimore. Members 

of multiple government agencies, 

community organizations, and 

broad segments of industry were in 

attendance. The event consisted of a 

number of panels and information 

sessions related to the integration 

of small drones into U.S. airspace 

along with the challenges and 

opportunities of moving toward 

an info-centric National Airspace 

System. The primary highlight of 

the event was the announcement 

by the FAA’s Jeffrey Vincent 

and NASA’s Parimal Kopardekar 

regarding the establishment of 

an Unmanned Aircraft System 

Traffic Management (UTM) key 

site in the North Texas region. The 

site will serve as an operational 

environment where multiple 

operators and service suppliers 

can begin routine Beyond Visual 

Line of Sight operations through 

a coordinated process between 

the FAA and NASA. The key site 

announcement was followed by a 

dedicated session on early details of 

the site where NASA’s anticipated 

contributions were clearly 

highlighted. Joseph Rios, Abhay 

Borade, and Jeff Homola of NASA’s 

UTM subproject were present to 

observe the announcement and 

engage in direct discussions with 

FAA partners and leadership as well 

as potential industry participants. 

For the announced effort, NASA 

will develop and implement a 
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2023 11

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

test harness that will serve as 

foundational infrastructure at the 

key site for service deployment, 

as well as data systems necessary 

for operational analysis. These 

contributions will be central to 

provide necessary environment and 

supporting data to make routine, 

persistent Beyond Visual Line 

of Sight operations by multiple 

operators a reality in the National 

Airspace System. 

IASMS/FSF/Sky for All 

Alignment Meeting 

POC: MICHAEL VINCENT AND KURT SWIERINGA

On Aug. 3–4, an In-Time Aviation 

Safety Management System 

(IASMS)/Flight Safety Foundation 

(FSF)/Sky for All alignment meeting 

was held at NASA’s Langley Research 

Center in Virginia. The purpose 

was to help the System-Wide 

Safety project integrate the IASMS 

into NASA’s Sky for All concept. 

Participants worked through the 

four primary safety research and 

development needs categories for 

the Sky for All vision, including: 

1) Ecosystem Architecture and 

Performance; 2) Cooperative and 

Highly Automated Operations; 

3) Distributed Information 

Infrastructure; and 4) In-Time Safety 

Assurance. Key safety needs and 

outstanding questions were captured. 

The outcome of this workshop will 

inform FSF’s effort to develop a 

roadmap for the Sky for All concept. 

DIP Visits United Airlines 

Operation Center 

POC: KURT SWIERINGA AND GILBERT WU

In preparation for the Sustainable 

Flight National Partnership 

Operational Demo 1b (Ops-1b), 

members from the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration project’s 

Digital Information Platform (DIP) 

subproject team were invited by 

United Airlines to visit their Station 

Operation Center and virtual ramp 

tower at George Bush International 

Airport (IAH) in Houston on Aug. 

8. United Airlines is a DIP partner 

for the Ops-1b test to be held in 

Houston’s airspace, and was granted 

access to DIP after signing a NASA 

information technology security 

agreement. This allows United the 

opportunity to provide feedback 

to improve accessibility and also 

determine and evaluate how they 

Ron Kline of United Airlines explains IAH’s traffic flows to the DIP team.

United Airlines’ virtual ramp tower at IAH.
12 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2023

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

can use DIP data and services. The 

DIP team discussed operational 

challenges and opportunities to 

collaborate with United to improve 

sustainability of flights. A few 

areas of collaboration that could 

benefit from prototype DIP services 

include mitigating the impact of 

thunderstorms in the summer and 

space launch operations in the 

Gulf of Mexico. The meeting was 

productive for both teams. As a 

next step, the United Airlines team 

will be visiting North Texas to see 

DIP services in operational use in 

early September. 

ATM-X Visits Honeywell 

Lab in Arizona 

POC: SHIVANJLI SHARMA

On Aug. 8–9, the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration 

(ATM-X) project management 

team visited the Honeywell Flight 

Operations Center and Laboratories 

in Arizona. The purpose of the 

visit was to exchange information 

and objectives associated with 

small drones Beyond Visual Line 

of Sight routine operations, as well 

as understand the avionics and 

airborne radar capabilities needed 

to support increasingly automated 

flight operations. Both the NASA 

and Honeywell teams shared 

emerging plans and initiatives to 

determine potential collaboration 

opportunities. Honeywell’s research 

and development efforts were 

found to be in line with a number 

of ATM-X project goals. Next steps 

include a regular series of meetings to 

share information and updates as well 

as targeted technical interchanges on 

a few key topics. 

ATM-X and NARI Visit 

UAM Demonstration 

POC: KEN FREEMAN

American Airlines’ director of 

training reached out to the SystemWide Safety (SWS) project to 

help address an identified issue 

that American Airlines pilots 

were experiencing. As part of the 

NASA and American Airlines 

collaboration, the teams worked 

together to produce a nine-minute 

human factors video that is being 

shown to more than 14,000 pilots 

during recurrent training – required 

training which started on June 

1. Kyle Ellis, Chad Stephens, and 

Kaitlyn Fox of SWS coordinated 

with Dan Kiggins, a NASA subject 

matter expert and American 

Airlines pilot, to develop a script 

and shoot the footage remotely and 

also in the studio at NASA’s Langley 

Research Center in California. This 

project was a collaborative effort 

involving the NASA Langley Media 

Solutions Branch and Public Affairs, 

as well as NASA Headquarters 

in Washington, DC. Content 

presented in the video demonstrates 

the feasibility of the concept 

of the In-time Aviation Safety 

Management System. Feedback 

Members from the ATM-X project and NARI at Hollister Municipal Airport.

Honeywell’s flight simulation facility.
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2023 13

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

from American Airlines regarding 

the production has been positive. 

After the video was shown to pilot 

management, the American Airlines 

director of training gave feedback 

that the NASA video is “the most 

popular part of the training class.” 

The video is titled “The Future of 

Aviation Safety.”

AAM Discussions 

with AFWERX 

POC: BRYAN BARMORE AND KYLE ELLIS

On Aug. 17, the Advanced 

Air Mobility (AAM) Mission 

Integration Office, associated AOSP 

projects, and representatives from 

NASA’s Langley Research Center in 

Virginia and Ames Research Center 

in California met with the U.S. 

Air Force’s AFWERX Agility 

Prime and Autonomy Prime. The 

purpose of the meeting was to 

discuss potential research areas for 

collaboration. AFWERX conducted 

a series of center visits earlier this 

year. This meeting reviewed findings 

from those visits and identified 

center facilities that AFWERX 

would be interested in supporting 

as in-kind contributions to their 

Small Business Innovation 

Research recipients. The meeting 

also shared some ongoing 

collaboration areas and NASA 

project activities that AFWERX is 

interested in. Follow-on discussions 

for facility use and collaboration 

are expected to continue among the 

appropriate parties. 

ATM-X Visits California 

Governor’s Office of 

Planning and Research 

POC: SHIVANJLI SHARMA

On Aug. 18, Shivanjli Sharma 

of the Air Traffic Management 

– eXploration (ATM-X) project 

joined other NASA leaders on a 

visit to the California Governor’s 

Office of Planning and Research 

in Sacramento. Huy Tran, director 

of Aeronautics at NASA’s Ames 

Research Center, and Parimal 

Kopardekar, director of the NASA 

Aeronautics Research Institute, 

accompanied Sharma. State of 

California representatives presented 

relevant programs of interest to 

NASA’s research, including zeroemission vehicles, wildfire taskforces, 

and economic resilience. Discussions 

were conducted on the sustainable 

air mobility innovation mission with 

state representatives, plans for next 

steps, and NASA’s expected advisory 

roles in strategic collaboration. 

HDV Conducts Flight 

Operations this Quarter

POC: LOU GLAAB AND JACOB SCHAEFER

The Advanced Air Mobility project’s 

High Density Vertiplex (HDV) 

subproject team conducted flight 

operations in August. The purpose 

of the tests was to evaluate radio 

frequency links at increasing ranges 

in preparation for Beyond Visual 

Line of Sight flights at NASA’s City 

Environment Range Testing for 

Autonomous Integrated Navigation 

(CERTAIN) range. The team 

reached new distances of 1.3 km 

(0.81 mi) by flying out over the back 

river, where the vehicle is no longer 

visible from the takeoff location, and 

maintained solid signal strength on 

both command and control links. 

This was only possible by flying 

without a safety/visual pilot and 

relying solely on a remote ground 

control station pilot. The current 

limiting factor in distance and 

routes is the requirement within the 

Beyond-Visual-Line-of-Sight safety 

case to be capable of landing within 

two minutes. The team plans to 

establish additional landing locations 

in addition to the current three 

vertiports to allow for more complex 

mission routes with increasing 

distance and scale. 

The team received a certificate of 

authorization from the FAA on 

Aug. 21 for Beyond Visual Line 

of Sight operations. The certificate 

allows NASA researchers to conduct 

drone operations at the CERTAIN 

range without visual sight of the 

aircraft or the airspace. The safety 

case developed by the Advanced Air 

Mobility project and the subsequent 

certificate of authorization issued 

allows for the project to meet 

14 CFR 91.113 see-and-avoid 

requirements from a remote location 

through the use of ground-based 

surveillance systems (Automatic 

Dependent Surveillance – Broadcast 

complemented by radar systems) 
14 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2023

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

as well as onboard autonomous 

Detect-and-Avoid technologies. 

The Remote Operations for 

Autonomous Missions facility 

within the Air Traffic Operations 

Lab at NASA’s Langley Research 

Center in Virginia is used as a 

base of operations and houses the 

remote-ground control station 

operator pilot in command, a 

radar operator, airspace monitor, 

flight test lead, and range safety 

officer. Beyond Visual Line of Sight 

flights are scheduled to begin in 

September 2023. 

ATM-X Project Office Visits 

NASA Glenn and Armstrong

POC: SHIVANJLI SHARMA

Members of the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration 

(ATM-X) project management 

office team conducted center visits 

this past quarter. On Aug. 3, the 

team travelled to NASA’s Glenn 

Research Center in Cleveland to 

meet with technical leads and 

researchers, tour facilities, and 

view capabilities leveraged by the 

project. The ATM-X team discussed 

priorities for communications 

and surveillance research needs 

across updated objectives to 

support remotely supervised and 

increasingly automated operations. 

Additionally, the team toured 

NASA’s PC-12 aircraft that is being 

used to collect performance data for 

existing cellular communications 

infrastructure to determine its 

PC-12 aircraft at NASA Glenn.

Left to right: Kurt Swieringa, Shivanjli Sharma, and Adam Yingling.
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2023 15

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

potential to support a range of 

Advanced Air Mobility operations 

and associated flight profiles. 

On Aug. 23, the ATM-X team 

visited with branch chiefs at NASA’s 

Armstrong Flight Research Center 

in California to provide an overview 

of upcoming ATM-X activities 

and discuss resources and planning 

activities for fiscal year 2024. 

Approximately 12 representatives 

from NASA Armstrong participated. 

An overview of ATM-X’s subprojects 

was presented, with special attention 

given to the Pathfinding for 

Airspace with Autonomous Vehicles 

subproject, where approximately 

75-percent of Armstrong’s support to 

ATM-X will be focused. The primary 

goal of this meeting was to ensure 

that the ATM-X planning is well 

coordinated with NASA Armstrong. 

Feedback from the branch chiefs 

indicated that the planned work 

aligned well with NASA Armstrong’s 

expectations and that they would 

be able to support the requested 

resource allocations.

PAAV Meets with 

Northrop Grumman 

POC: ARWA AWEISS

On Aug. 24, the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration 

project’s Pathfinding for Airspace 

with Autonomous Vehicles (PAAV) 

subproject team met with Northrop 

Grumman at their facility in Rancho 

Bernardo, California. The purpose 

of the meeting was to plan a 2023 

demonstration toward Unmanned 

Aircraft Systems in the National 

Airspace System. Discussions 

included the status of current flight 

activity plans, an introduction to 

Northrup Grumman’s Firebird 

and System Integration Lab, and 

an overview of their automatic 

contingency generator. 

PAAV Data Collection Runs 

Complete at NASA Langley

POC: HEIDI GLAUDEL

On Aug. 29, in support of the Air 

Traffic Management – eXploration 

project’s Pathfinding for Airspace 

with Autonomous Vehicles (PAAV) 

subproject, batch runs have been 

completed for the Traffic Pattern 

Integration (TPI) Verification 

Simulation milestone activity. 

This work was completed in the 

Air Traffic Operations Lab at 

NASA’s Langley Research Center 

in Virginia, and included a year of 

algorithm and software development and integration in conducting 

the batch runs. This checkpoint in 

the milestone activity was achieved 

after the development and integration of the TPI prototype algorithm 

into the Urban Air Mobility simulation environment. The PAAV TPI 

operational focus area is researching 

ways to enable an uncrewed aircraft 

to safely and properly enter and

fly the traffic pattern in visualflight-rules conditions at airports 

without towers. 

DIP and UAM Provide Updates 

and Demos 

POC: GILBERT WU AND KENNETH FREEMAN

On Aug. 30, the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration 

(ATM-X) project’s Digital 

Information Platform (DIP) 

subproject provided an update 

on recent accomplishments and 

a demonstration to the AOSP 

management team during a visit 

to NASA’s Ames Research Center 

in California. The demonstration 

showed DIP’s Collaborative Digital 

Departure Reroute (CDDR) tool 

currently being deployed at NASA’s 

North Texas Research Station. Recent 

updates regarding the partnership 

engagement, platform development, 

marketing activities, and Sustainable 

Flight National Partnership 

Operations first and second 

demonstrations were also shared. 

In addition, the CDDR Airport 

Surface Model implementation to 

New York’s airspace was presented. 

This work is in preparation for the 

third operational demonstration. 

The updates were well received, and 

the AOSP team provided good 

input on DIP’s near-term focus and 

priorities. Gilbert Wu, Swati Saxena, 

and Jeremy Coupe represented 

DIP. The ATM-X project’s Urban 

Air Mobility (UAM) AirspaceManagement subproject team 

demonstrated a simulated UAM use 

case based on Dallas-Fort Worth 

International Airport. The UAM 

airspace simulation shows how new 
16 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2023

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

traffic constructs can help evolve the 

airspace toward integration with the 

National Airspace System. 

SWS Holds Annual 

Leadership Retreat 

POC: KYLE ELLIS

On Aug. 29–31, the System-Wide 

Safety (SWS) project held their 

annual project leadership retreat at 

NASA’s Langley Research Center in 

Virginia. Day one kicked off with 

a welcome from Kyle Ellis, SWS’s 

project manager, and a presentation 

from the keynote speaker, Robert 

Sumwalt, executive director of the 

Boeing Center for Aviation and 

Aerospace Safety at Embry-Riddle 

Aeronautical University. Sumwalt 

provided historical perspectives, 

trends, and justifications for aviation 

safety checks while emphasizing 

and lauding the importance of the 

SWS project’s efforts on in-time 

aviation safety management. Day 

two focused on planning and 

resource allocation for the different 

technical challenges within the 

project. Day three concluded with 

discussions on emerging operations, 

future strategy, and the paths to 

milestone completion. SWS team 

members visiting from other NASA 

centers, as well as NASA Langley 

personnel, enjoyed tours of the 

various Langley facilities including 

the hangar, aircraft and flight 

operations simulators, National 

Transonic Facility, and a drive-by of 

the Landing and Impact Research 

Facility and City Environment 

Range Testing for Autonomous 

Integrated Navigation test range. 

UAM Conducts Lessons 

Learned Meeting at 

NASA Glenn 

POC: KENNETH FREEMAN

On Aug. 31, the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration 

project’s Urban Air Mobility 

(UAM) subproject held a meeting 

at NASA’s Glenn Research Center 

in Cleveland. This meeting began 

the process of documenting 

the subproject’s “Lessons 

Learned,” focusing on research 

accomplishments, subproject 

challenges, partnership experiences, 

and FAA relationships. 

SWS Invited to Participate on 

Multiple CAST Tiger Teams 

POC: LANCE PRINZEL AND KYLE ELLIS

The System-Wide Safety (SWS) 

project was invited to serve on the 

Commercial Aviation Safety Team 

(CAST) Safety Management System 

(SMS) tiger team with additional 

membership on the steering 

committee. CAST has established 

the SMS steering committee 

and formed four tiger teams: 

SMS Integration, Data/Metrics, 

Governance, and Communications 

and Promotions. SWS has 

membership on the steering 

committee for the Subject Matter 

Expert Integration tiger team. 

Four working groups have been 

established: Safety Enhancement 

SWS planning meeting participants at NASA Langley.
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2023 17

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

Effectiveness, SMS Process, SMS 

Interaction, and Cross-Tiger 

Team Interaction/Coordination. 

Nikunj Oza has been proposed 

for additional membership on the 

Data/Metrics team. This activity 

will be an ongoing effort as CAST 

tiger teams meet multiple times 

weekly. The objective is to develop 

CAST with a national-level 

perspective. An integrated SMS 

vision is planned with potential 

modified CAST processes and 

practices aligned to SMS framework 

elements. SWS efforts toward 

development of In-Time Aviation 

Safety Management Systems in 

support of FAA and NASA future 

visions and NASA Strategic 

Implementation Plan Thrust 

5, “In-Time System Wide Safety 

Assurance,” are expected to help 

inform CAST efforts as well as 

further the stakeholder outreach 

on how safety management will be 

done in the future airspace. 

SWS Participates in 

DARPA ARCOS Meeting 

POC: LANCE PRINZEL AND NIKUNJ OZA

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical 

University was awarded a 

cooperative agreement to support 

System-Wide Safety (SWS) research 

in the area of Human Contributions 

to Safety. The research is focused 

on understanding how humans 

routinely contribute to everyday 

operations in the National Airspace 

System under different operational 

domains. These include traditional 

commercial aviation and disaster 

response operations. The goal 

of this activity is to explore new 

data sources and analytical tools 

(e.g., machine learning and 

natural language processing) for 

extracting learning opportunities 

from all aviation operations. The 

cooperative agreement will also 

support other SWS efforts to 

examine both existing mishap/

incident data, experimentally 

collected data, and line operational 

data to identify realistic, actionable 

methods to support and encourage 

continuous learning at the operator, 

organizational, and national levels.

ACERO Releases RFI for 

Wildland Firefighting Solutions 

POC: MARCUS JOHNSON

On Sep. 6, the Advanced Capabilities 

for Emergency Response Operations 

(ACERO) project released a request 

for information (RFI) to identify 

technologies that address current 

challenges facing the wildland 

firefighting community. The RFI 

seeks information on decisionsupport capabilities, airborne 

connectivity and communications 

solutions, uncrewed aircraft 

systems traffic management, 

aircraft operations, autonomy, and 

others. The request has a response 

deadline of Oct. 15, 2023, and 

was shared across the Aeronautics 

Research Mission Directorate’s 

Twitter, Solicitations page, and on 

NASA’s LinkedIn. The response to 

this RFI will support development 

of a partnership strategy for future 

collaborative demonstrations under 

the ACERO project. 

SWS Meets with MITRE 

on PNT for Emerging 

Aviation Operations 

POC: EVAN DILL

On Sep. 6–7, System-Wide 

Safety (SWS) project researchers 

conducted a two-day technical 

interchange meeting with 

subject matter experts from 

MITRE. The meeting focused 

on positioning, navigation, and 

timing (PNT) for emerging 

aviation operations. Topics covered 

included: 1) a refinement of the 

SWS project’s Navigation Quality 

Prognostic service (NavQ) to 

include estimates of multipath; 

2) leveraging NavQ to increase 

position solution accuracy during 

urban aviation operations; and 3) 

developing receiver specification 

recommendations for low-altitude 

aviation operations. Resulting 

discussions will be key in 

collaborations of work going 

forward. Since 2018, SWS has 

been collaborating with MITRE 

on various PNT capabilities. 
18 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2023

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

UTM BVLOS Releases RFI 

POC: JOSEPH RIOS

On Sep. 8, the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration 

project’s Unmanned Aircraft 

Systems Traffic Management 

(UTM) Beyond Visual Line of 

Sight (BVLOS) subproject released 

a Request for Information (RFI). 

The purpose of the RFI is to gain a 

better understanding of readiness 

and willingness of service operators 

that have built software, publish 

Unmanned Aircraft Systems Service 

Supplier (USS) standards, and 

participate in an initial, operational 

USS network. Another purpose of 

the RFI release is to solicit other 

service suppliers that are building 

services out of the scope of the 

current American Society for 

Testing Materials USS standards. 

DIP Hosts United 

Airlines Visit to NTX

POC: JEREMY COUPE

On Sep. 8, the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration project’s 

Digital Information Platform (DIP) 

subproject hosted visitors from 

United Airlines at NASA’s North 

Texas facility (NTX). United Airlines 

is one of five major airline partners 

working with the DIP team. The DIP 

team demonstrated its Collaborative 

Digital Departure Reroute tool 

suites and discussed United Airlines’ 

participation in the Sustainable 

Flight National Partnership Ops-1a 

demo in North Texas. United’s Flow 

Evaluation Team point of contact 

shared his perspective on the team’s 

work and discussed how DIP could 

be involved. The United team also 

visited American Airlines’ Integrated 

Operations Center and exchanged 

ideas with American’s representatives 

about improving efficiency of 

operations. The discussion was 

fruitful, and follow-on meetings will 

be held both virtually and in Chicago.

PVT App Now in Use on the 

International Space Station

POC: ERIN FLYNN-EVANS

In early September, researchers 

from the European Space Agency 

incorporated the NASA Psychomotor 

Vigilance Task (PVT) application 

into systems on the International 

Space Station for evaluating 

human performance and circadian 

rhythms among astronauts. The 

application was originally developed 

by researchers in NASA’s Fatigue 

Countermeasures Lab as part of the 

System-Wide Safety project to assess 

human performance among airline 

pilots. It features a reaction-time test 

to gauge alertness and a streamlined 

process for gathering information 

that scientists need to understand 

the relationship between fatigue and 

operator performance. Operators 

working in complex real-world 

situations can use the application to 

collect valuable research data that 

will aid the development of reliable 

fatigue tests and countermeasures in 

the long term and help promote peak 

human performance during critical 

operations. NASA had previously 

used the app for spaceflight 

simulations, but this is the first time 

it will be used in space. 

SBIR Phase II-E Awarded to 

Robust Analytics for SWANS 

POC: NIKUNJ OZA

Robust Analytics received a 

NASA Small Business Innovation 

Research (SBIR) Phase II-E award 

this September to further the 

System Wide Analysis Network 

for In-Time Safety (SWANS). 

SWANS continuously monitors NASA Glenn team conducting flight tests onboard 

the Pilatus PC-12.

NASA PVT application into systems on the 

International Space Station.
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2023 19

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

and reports hazards and safetyrelated events in terminal airspace 

with trend detection to ensure 

safe flight operations. SWANS 

provides continuous airspace safety 

monitoring by identifying hazards 

and risk events every minute. This 

award will increase the scope of 

Robust Analytics’ work to the 

surface and controllers by adding 

surface data, identifying anomalous 

air-ground interactions, constructing 

proxy controller workload metrics, 

demonstrating feasibility of 

capturing errors in controller-pilot 

audio communications, and 

developing and deploying methods 

to identify risk factor dependencies 

and estimate safety margins of 

aircraft and airport operations. This 

work will also advance the goal of 

the System-Wide Safety project 

to increase the scope of coverage 

of the In-Time Aviation Safety 

Management System to include the 

full National Airspace System. 

ATM-X Participates at 

NATCA Communicating 

for Safety Conference 

POC: SHIVANJLI SHARMA

On Sep. 18–20, the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration 

(ATM-X) project management 

team participated in the National 

Air Traffic Controllers Association 

(NATCA) Communicating for 

Safety Conference in Las Vegas. The 

conference is the aviation industry’s 

leading conference focusing on safety, 

technology, and relationship building. 

This three-day conference is the 

only one to focus specifically on the 

air traffic needs of all members of 

the aviation community who are 

affected within the National Airspace 

System. ATM-X hosted a booth that 

focused on its Digital Information 

Platform subproject and Sky for All. 

In addition, ATM-X project manager 

Shivanjli Sharma was a moderator for 

a panel titled “Meeting the Demands 

of Tomorrow.” 

UTM BVLOS Hosts FAA and 

Industry Session at NTX 

POC: JOSEPH RIOS

On Sep. 19–21, the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration project’s 

Unmanned Aircraft Systems Traffic 

Management (UTM) Beyond 

Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) 

subproject supported a UTM Key 

Site Operational Evaluation set of 

meetings in Dallas. The meetings 

were hosted at NASA’s North Texas 

Research Station (NTX). The 

meetings included discussions 

between FAA, industry small-drone 

operators, and NASA personnel. 

The meeting also included a kickoff 

event for the key site during which 

presentations were provided to the 

FAA regional administrator’s office, 

as well as local FAA personnel and 

state, local, and tribal leadership. The 

NASA team provided an update and 

plans related to the UTM network 

installation and the current approach 

for testing and data collection. 

SWS Releases PRECiSA 

Software with New FloatingPoint Formalization 

POC: TERRY MORRIS

System-Wide Safety (SWS) project 

researchers have released the Program 

Round-off Certifier via Static Analysis 

(PRECiSA) software. The software 

is a fully automatic static analyzer 

for floating-point valued functions. 

It computes an over-approximation 

of the round-off error of a given 

floating-point expression along with 

a formal certificate that ensures 

the correctness of the estimated 

error. The current invention extends 

the previous invention disclosures 

(LAR-19010-1, LAR-19227-1, 

LAR-19739-1). 

SWS to Produce Another 

Training Video for 

American Airlines 

POC: CHAD STEPHENS AND KAITLYN FOX

Based on the success of recent 

collaborations, American Airlines 

invited NASA’s System-Wide Safety 

(SWS) project to produce another 

human factors video to be used for 

pilot training next spring. The video 

will examine the decision-making 

process. SWS researchers hope 

to interview a NASA astronaut 

to contribute to the topic. Chad 

Stephens, Kaitlyn Fox, and Dan 

Kiggins are working together 

to produce the approximately 

10-minute video. 
20 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2023

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

DIP Hosts FAA Visit to NTX 

and American Airlines 

POC: SWATI SAXENA

On Sep. 21, the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration project’s 

Digital Information Platform (DIP) 

subproject team hosted members 

of the FAA’s Systems Analysis 

and Modeling Division within 

its NextGen organization. The 

meeting was hosted at NASA’s 

North Texas Research Station 

(NTX) and the primary objective 

was to familiarize the FAA team 

with NASA’s Collaborative Digital 

Departure Rerouting (CDDR) 

capability, which is currently 

undergoing operational evaluations 

in several airline and air traffic 

control facilities in Texas. This 

familiarization included briefings, 

demonstrations, and observations 

of the CDDR tool in use at 

American Airlines’ Integrated 

Operations Center. The CDDR 

operational evaluation in North 

Texas is the first in a series of 

demonstrations that the DIP 

team is conducting in support 

of NASA’s Sustainable Flight 

National Partnership. In addition 

to the CDDR familiarization, 

meeting participants also discussed 

challenges associated with accurately 

assessing operational impacts of new 

air traffic management concepts 

and technologies. Following 

these discussions, the assembled 

group exchanged information 

from their experience applying 

machine learning techniques to the 

prediction of air traffic system of 

systems behavior. 

SWS Human Machine 

Teaming NASA Research 

Announcement Review 

POC: NATASHA NEOGI

On Sep. 21, the System-Wide 

Safety (SWS) project’s Human 

Machine Teaming NASA Research 

Announcement team presented 

a summary of their progress on 

the application of the Systems 

Theoretical Process Analysis 

technique to an Urban Air Mobility 

case study. The team is led by 

Nancy Leveson of the Massachusetts 

Institute of Technology (MIT), and 

the approach focused on how novel 

hazard analysis techniques could be 

applied to capture inimical humanmachine interactions. The briefing 

outlined a taxonomy for describing 

multiple common humanmachine teaming paradigms in a 

control-theoretic framework, and 

demonstrated how these architectural 

patterns could be used to surface 

unsafe collaborative control actions 

that may otherwise have been 

undetected at the early phases of 

design. SWS researcher Natasha 

Neogi and the NASA technical point 

of contact for the award arranged for 

the participation of two other NASA 

Research Announcement teams from 

Collins Aerospace and Pennsylvania 

State University to engage 

SWS planning meeting participants at NASA Langley.
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2023 21

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

interactively during the questionand-answer sessions. This approach 

fostered a complementary set of 

research executed across the NASA 

Research Announcements to address 

a wide range of human-machine 

teaming challenges in emerging 

technologies and operations. These 

sessions were also attended by 

external subject matter experts from 

both the FAA and the Air Force 

Research Laboratory, who provided 

valuable feedback.

PAAV Conducts Multiple 

TIMs this Quarter 

POC: PATRICIA GLAAB, WANESSA PRIESMEYER,

DAVID THIPPHAVONG, MIWA HAYASHI, 

AND ARWA AWEISS

Representatives from across 

the various NASA Aeronautics 

centers participated in multiple 

technical interchange meetings 

(TIMs) supporting the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration (ATMX) project’s Pathfinding for Airspace 

with Autonomous Vehicles (PAAV) 

subproject. The first TIM was held in 

Monterey, California on Aug. 21–22. 

It included representatives from 

the ATM-X Project Management 

Office (PMO) and both the directors 

of Aeronautics at NASA’s Langley 

Research Center in Virginia and 

Ames Research Center in California. 

Participating also were researchers 

from PAAV and the Advanced Air 

Mobility project’s Automated Flight 

and Contingency Management 

subproject, including the Integration 

of Automated Systems effort as 

part of the Airspace Procedures 

and Design subproject. The TIM 

facilitated discussions between all of 

these organizations as a leadup to the 

fiscal year 2024 ATM-X realignment. 

The PMO presented their vision 

for PAAV including both top-level 

and near-term objectives, as well as 

future goals. This kickstarted more 

detailed group discussions. The TIM 

also aided in teambuilding for the 

emerging PAAV team since it was 

an opportunity for members of the 

existing subprojects to have face-toface discussions. The meeting proved 

to be productive and provided a 

foundation for continued PAAV 

realignment planning. 

The second TIM was held at the 

Bridgeport-Sikorsky Memorial 

Airport in Connecticut on Sep. 

21-22. Shivanjli Sharma and Kurt 

Swieringa of ATM-X attended along 

with other project and subproject 

team members including Adam 

Yingling, Rafael Apaza, Miwa 

Hayashi, David Thipphavong, Jordan 

Sakakeeny, Arwa Aweiss, Patricia 

Glaab, Tod Lewis, Conrad Rorie, 

Casey Smith, Husni Idris, Rich 

Coppenbarger, and David Wing. The 

team worked diligently in refining 

and adding detail to the subproject 

plans. In addition, core planning 

teams for each of PAAV 2.0’s planned 

research areas (systems and concept 

analysis, conflict management, 

contingency management, and air/

ground service-oriented framework 

and testing) were formed to develop 

more detailed plans. These teams will 

reconvene later this year to integrate 

their plans into one cohesive plan for 

the subproject going forward. Finally, 

some of the in-person participants 

were briefed by Sikorsky engineers 

on their ongoing Defense Advanced 

Research Projects Agency flight test 

activities and observed the NASA 

Integration of Automated Systems-1 

ground test verification and 

validation activities. 

DIP Kicks Off SFNP 

Ops-1b with Houston 

Air Traffic Control

POC: SWATI SAXENA

On Sep. 25–26, the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration project’s 

Digital Information Platform 

(DIP) subproject team met with 

the FAA’s NextGen organization 

(ANG) and local Air Traffic Control 

leadership from Houston’s airspace. 

The purpose of the meeting was 

to kickoff discussions of the DIP 

team’s Sustainable Flight National 

Partnership Operations (SFNP 

Ops-1b) testing in Houston. The 

National Air Traffic Controllers 

Association national representative 

for ANG also attended the 

meeting. DIP leaders presented 

the subproject’s overall objectives 

and portfolio, engagement history 

with FAA, Collaborative Digital 

Departure Reroute tool and current 

deployment in North Texas, and 
22 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2023

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

the deployment and demonstration 

schedule in Houston airspace for 

SFNP Ops-1b. The DIP team will 

be observing Houston operations 

in their facilities for the next three 

months to better understand the 

operations in Houston. The first 

three-hour observation session took 

place on Sept. 27 at the Houston 

Air Route Traffic Control Center, 

the FAA Houston Terminal Radar 

Approach Control Facility, George 

Bush Intercontinental Airport, 

William P. Hobby Airport, and 

United Airlines’ ramp tower. The 

second observation session is 

scheduled in early November. The 

results from these sessions will be 

presented in January 2024. 
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2023 23

RECOGNITION

International Exposure for 

SWS Developed Plaidypvs 

POC: J. TANNER SLAGEL

On July 1, System-Wide Safety 

(SWS) project researcher J. Tanner 

Slagel presented a paper at the 18th 

Logical and Semantic Frameworks 

with Applications Workshop in 

Rome. This workshop was a satellite 

event of the Formal Structures 

for Computation and Deduction. 

Slagel’s paper, titled “Embedding 

Differential Dynamic Logic in 

PVS,” is available at https://sites.

google.com/ufg.br/lsfa2023/

accepted-papers. This work detailed 

and offered demonstrations of 

Plaidypvs, a new tool for the 

formal specification and reasoning 

of Hybrid Systems, which has 

been developed by members 

of the NASA Formal Methods 

team under the SWS project. The 

conference was an opportunity 

for the presenter to establish 

new partnerships in industry 

and academia toward formally 

assuring cyber physical systems. 

The conference provided the 

opportunity to create a coalition 

with the researchers at the Carnegie 

Mellon University and Karlsruhe 

Institute of Technology that 

created differential dynamic logic, 

which is the underlying logic that 

the Plaidypvs tool is based on.

SWS Manager New Deputy 

Chair for Large Vehicles 

Technical Committee 

POC: WENDY OKOLO

Wendy Okolo, associate project 

manager of NASA’s System-Wide 

Safety (SWS) project, has recently 

been named the deputy chair of the 

American Institute of Aeronautics 

and Astronautics’ Atmospheric 

Flight Mechanics Large Vehicles 

Technical Committee. This is an 

important group for SWS to be able 

to contribute to their body of work. 

In this role, Okolo will coordinate 

with appropriate organizations and 

agencies to determine the future 

needs for large atmospheric flight 

mechanics vehicles and systems 

while encouraging and supporting 

technical interchange between the 

appropriate government agencies, 

universities, and contractors 

to advance atmospheric flight 

mechanics technology for large 

vehicles. Okolo will also encourage 

and support the implementation 

and improvement of atmospheric 

flight mechanics-related education 

for large vehicles, as well as review 

submissions and organize sessions 

related to technical challenge work 

that involves larger vehicles such as 

fixed-wing airplanes and rotorcraft. 

SWS Participates on 

AIAA Intelligent Systems 

Technical Committee 

POC: NATASHA NEOGI

System-Wide Safety (SWS) 

researcher Natasha Neogi served 

as the American Institute of 

Aeronautics and Astronautics 

(AIAA) Intelligent Systems Technical 

Committee chair at the biannual 

AIAA Intelligent Systems Technical 

Courtyard of the Formal Structures for Computation and Deduction conference venue, in the building of 

Civil and Industrial Engineering on the campus of Sapienza University of Rome.
24 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2023

RECOGNITION

Committee held on July 24. The 

event was hosted at the University 

of Colorado in Boulder. Topics 

included selection of next year’s 

workshop site, arrangement of 

joint sessions with other technical 

committees such as the AIAA 

Guidance, Navigation, and 

Controls Technical Committee, 

and adoption of an official charter. 

Concurrent with the Technical 

Committee meeting, the eighth 

annual AIAA Intelligent Systems 

Workshop was held and attended 

by approximately 50 researchers 

from industry, academia, and 

government. The workshop is 

an important part of the AIAA 

Intelligent Systems Technical 

Committee annual activities and 

provides an informal, unclassified, 

international forum for the 

exchange of ideas and information 

on intelligent systems. The 

workshop was supported by 

researchers from NASA’s Langley 

Research Center in Virginia, 

including Kasey Ackerman, Irene 

Gregory, Natasha Neogi, and 

Steven Snyder. The workshop 

included keynote talks, plenary 

sessions, panel discussions, break 

out discussions, and laboratory 

tours. Gregory gave a keynote 

talk titled “Autonomous Flight: 

Challenges and Potential 

Approaches to Contingency 

Management.” Neogi hosted a 

breakout session on “Upcoming 

Standards Approaches for Enabling 

Autonomy” and participated in 

the open-mic session. Snyder 

assisted in the organization of the 

workshop and judged the student 

paper and poster competitions. 

SWS Manager Invited to 

Fireside Chat at MIT Horizon 

POC: WENDY OKOLO

On July 25, Wendy Okolo, 

associate project manager of 

the System-Wide Safety (SWS) 

project, was invited to participate 

as a guest speaker in a fireside chat 

with Massachusetts Institute of 

Technology (MIT) Horizon. Her 

talk, “Sustainability and Aerospace: 

Planes, Performance, and People,” 

provided Okolo the opportunity 

to discuss her aerospace research, 

project management, and workforce 

development perspectives on the 

sustainability of the aerospace 

industry and National Airspace 

System. MIT Horizon is a digital 

library with exclusive original 

content on emerging technologies, 

featuring the latest developments 

from MIT and beyond to help 

working professionals quickly 

understand and apply the latest 

developments to their work.

SWS Manager Presents at the 

SRLEEA Conference 

POC: TERRY MORRIS

On Aug. 1, Terry Morris of the 

System-Wide Safety (SWS) project 

served as an invited speaker at the 

Small and Rural Law Enforcement 

Executives Association (SRLEEA) 

Conference in Virginia. Morris 

was asked to discuss technology 

evolution of artificial intelligence 

and machine learning and its 

future impact on law enforcement 

leadership. The conference 

represented sheriffs and police 

departments from all 50 states as 

well as several Canadian provinces 

and tribal communities. In the 

near future, new paradigms and 

The AIAA Intelligent Systems Technical Committee meeting and AIAA Intelligent Systems Workshop: “New 

Frontiers in Autonomy” were held at the University of Colorado in Boulder. 
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2023 25

RECOGNITION

mental models for drone use will 

have to be adopted by sheriff and 

police departments to prepare for 

these technologies. Morris shared 

the stage with Alejandro Mayorkas, 

secretary of the U.S. Department 

of Homeland Security, and 

Vanita Gupta, associate attorney 

general of the United States. 

SWS Manager Gives Talk 

and Panel Discussion at DoD 

Conference

POC: WENDY OKOLO

On Aug. 3, Wendy Okolo of the 

System-Wide Safety (SWS) project 

served on a panel and gave an 

invited presentation at the 4th 

Annual National Defense and 

Engineering Graduate Fellowship 

Conference in San Antonio. Her 

presentation was titled “From 

Drones to Air Taxis: Modeling, 

Predicting, and Mitigating Unsafe 

Autonomous Vehicle Operations in 

the National Airspace.” Sponsored 

by the U.S. Air Force Office of 

Scientific Research (AFOSR), the 

Army Research Office, and the 

Office of Naval Research under 

the direction of the Office of the 

Under Secretary of Defense for 

Research and Engineering, the 

2023 conference was attended by 

senior Department of Defense 

(DoD) leaders including Bindu Nair, 

director for basic research at the 

Office of the Secretary of Defense; 

William Roach, the AFOSR chief 

scientist at the Air Force Research 

Laboratory; Patrick Baker, director 

of the Army Research Laboratory; 

and Michele Gaudreault, deputy 

chief scientist for the Space Force. 

The purpose of this conference 

was to “advance national defense 

through innovative DoD research 

and collaboration by building and 

strengthening U.S. doctoral power.” 

SWS Researchers Present to 

ALPA Executive Safety Council

POC: KYLE ELLIS AND LANCE PRINZEL

On Sep. 11, System-Wide Safety 

(SWS) project researchers Kyle Ellis 

and Lance Prinzel were invited 

to give a presentation to the Air 

Line Pilots Association (ALPA) 

Executive Safety Council Annual 

Safety Summit in Chicago. SWS 

is engaged in several research 

and development collaborations 

with ALPA member airlines and 

is currently working to establish 

additional agreements in support of 

the project’s efforts toward the next 

evolution of safety management 

systems, labeled In-Time Aviation 

Safety Management System. 

AdaStress Paper Named 

“Most Visionary” at AAMAS 

Conference Workshop

POC: RORY LIPKIS

On Sep. 8, the System-Wide 

Safety project received word Wendy Okolo served on a panel and gave a presentation at the 2023 National Defense and Engineering 

Graduate Fellowship Conference.
26 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2023

RECOGNITION

that its AdaStress team’s recent 

paper, “Discovery and Analysis of 

Rare High-Impact Failure Modes 

Using Adversarial Reinforcement 

Learning- (RL) Informed Sampling” 

was named “most visionary paper” 

by the chairs of the Adaptive 

Learning Agents workshop of the 

Autonomous Agents and Multiagent 

Systems (AAMAS) conference. 

The paper was presented in May 

2023. The AdaStress team develops 

and maintains a set of tools 

related to adaptive stress-testing of 

autonomous systems in simulation. 

These tools attach to pre-existing 

software or artificial intelligence 

systems and use a novel blend 

of statistical and learning-based 

approaches to elicit and analyze 

failure modes. In the past, AdaStress 

has been used to find weaknesses 

in aircraft collision avoidance 

systems, providing an important 

role in the development cycle of 

these safety-critical components. 

SWS Manager Participates at 

ALPA International Air Safety 

Forum 

POC: NIKUNJ OZA

In September, Nikunj Oza, deputy 

project manager for the SystemWide Safety (SWS) project, 

participated on a panel titled 

“Safety Multipliers for Future 

Operations” at the annual Air 

Line Pilots Association (ALPA) 

Air Safety Forum in Chicago. The 

panel was moderated by Steve 

Jangelis, ALPA’s aviation safety chair, 

and included representatives from 

airlines, manufacturers, the FAA, 

and MITRE. The panel focused 

on future technologies and tools 

to advance aviation safety. Oza 

presented a sample of NASA’s 

current and long-term future work 

on developing new technologies for 

aviation safety. Kim Pyle, executive 

director for accident investigation 

and prevention at the FAA, and 

Sasha Johnson, vice president 

for corporate safety at United 

Airlines, will meet with Oza for 

follow-up meetings to discuss the 

range of work that he presented. 

The forum hosted approximately 

800 in-person registrants.

SWS Releases Important Code 

and is Published in Nature 

Scientific Reports 

POC: MATTEO CORBETTA AND CHETAN KULKARNI

A System-Wide Safety (SWS) project 

research team, in collaboration with 

the University of Central Florida, 

presented a paper on a model for a 

battery discharge and degradation 

prognosis method. The method is 

based on physics-informed machine 

learning, where electrochemistrybased equations are combined with 

neural networks to take advantage 

of previous knowledge as well as 

tune the model with data streams 

from voltage and current sensors. 

The model can predict the discharge 

profile of a battery given the load 

input as the battery ages over 

time. It can predict aging based on 

data from similar, older batteries 

and can also estimate the residual 

capacity based on partial capacity 

usage. The paper was presented on 

“Nature Scientific Reports” and the 

code was made available through 

the NASA Github repository. 

SWS Manager Selected as 

Associate Fellow by the AIAA 

POC: STEVE YOUNG

Evan Dill, System-Wide Safety 

(SWS) researcher and subproject 

manager, has been selected as an 

associate fellow by the American 

Institute of Aeronautics and 

Astronautics (AIAA). Per the AIAA, 

“associate fellows are individuals of 

distinction who have made notable 

and valuable contributions to the 

arts, sciences, or technology of 

aeronautics or astronautics.” Dill 

and his team were notified on 

Sep. 18 that he had been selected. 

AIAA will formally honor and 

induct the 2024 class of associate 

fellows during its 2024 AIAA 

SciTech Forum to be held on Jan. 

8-12, 2024 in Orlando, Florida. 

The citation on Dill’s selection 

states: “For outstanding and 

exemplary contributions to avionics 

systems engineering, run-time 

safety assurance applications, and 

unmanned aircraft navigation 

in challenging environments.” 
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2023 27

RECOGNITION

SWS Manager Provides 

Keynote Address at IATA 

Conference

POC: KYLE ELLIS

On May 18, Swati Saxena, Jeremy 

Coupe, and William Chan 

participated in a panel at the 

2023 Artificial Intelligence and 

Big Data Expo in California. The 

NASA panel members discussed 

the application of machine 

learning to improving airline 

operations during the panel 

titled “Real World Application 

of Artificial Intelligence/Machine 

Learning (AI/ML) for Managing 

Airspace Operations.” A goal for 

the Digital Information Platform 

(DIP) team was to expand NASA’s 

connections within this community 

to accelerate the development and 

deployment of DIP’s ML/AI-based 

technologies. The approximately 

100-person audience heard how 

NASA is working with the FAA 

and airlines to provide sustainable 

aviation benefits today by saving 

fuel upon departure out of the 

Dallas-Fort Worth area. The 

panelists discussed NASA’s rich 

history of air traffic management 

research, DIP technology, and 

lessons learned in fielding NASA 

technology for operational use. 

SWS Participates at 2023 

AUVSI Advanced Air Mobility 

Exposition 

POC: NATASHA NEOGI

On Sep. 26–28, System-Wide 

Safety (SWS) project researcher 

Natasha Neogi served on the 

Advanced Air Mobility panel at the 

2023 Association for Uncrewed 

Vehicle Systems International 

(AUVSI) Advanced Air Mobility 

Exposition in Virginia. The panel 

moderator was John Koelling, 

director of Aeronautics at NASA’s 

Langley Research Center in 

Virginia. Other panelists included 

Ken Goodrich, Matthew Coldsnow, 

and Benny Lunsford, all from 

NASA Langley. The goal was 

to convene industry, state, and 

federal officials in the emerging 

Advanced Air Mobility domain to 

explore the exciting developments 

in the field. AUVSI Hampton 

Roads and the Virginia Aerospace 

Business Association hosted the 

event to explore these innovations, 

highlight the opportunity for state 

investment, and articulate paths 

forward for greater progress. 

ATM-X ICIA Presents ChatGPT 

at the SERC 

POC: NIPA PHOJANAMONGKOLKIJ

On Sep. 27–28, representatives 

from the engineering directorate at 

NASA’s Langley Research Center in 

Virginia participated in a meeting at 

the Systems Engineering Research 

Center (SERC) in Washington, DC. 

The purpose of the meeting was 

to present a ChatGPT application 

in requirement discovery and 

analysis. Nipa Phojanamongkolkij, 

lead systems engineer for the Air 

Traffic Management – eXploration 

(ATM-X) project’s Integrated 

Concepts and Interim Architecture 

(ICIA), described how she and 

her colleagues are leveraging 

ChatGPT (a version approved 

for use by NASA) to improve 

how information is captured and 

synthesized for systems engineering. 

This innovative work was started 

as part of the Urban Air Mobility 

systems engineering research and is 

expected to be continued as part of 

the ICIA effort. The presentation 

was well received and initiated an 

insightful dialogue with the systems 

engineering community at large.

 Ellis participating at IATA World Safety.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Headquarters

300 E. Street, SW

Washington, DC 20024

www.nasa.gov/aeroresearch

www.nasa.gov