A good summary from 09/19 on how NASA, and in partsees the Urban Air Mobility (UAM) market developing. The video includes:
In-flight footage of eVTOL aircraft including Wisk's Cora, the Boeing NeXT eVTOL demonstrator, Airbus' Vahana, Volocopter's VoloCity and the Lilium Jet
Concept video from Uber Elevate and of eViation's Alice and the Ray VTOL concept
Discussion of Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM)
Mention of the NASA UAM Grand Challenge which announced 17 commercial participants this week
The five pillars where technical progress needs to be made, as NASA see it, are:
Vehicle design - clarifying NASA won't be building an aircraft themselves but providing technical leadership on areas where
Piloting - looking at the pathways towards automation
Airspace Architecture - integrating UAM & UTM into the existing US national airspace system
Real-time Operation of Airspace - to manage increased traffic levels and use automation to augment the work of human air traffic controllers
Community Integration - looking at how to add 1000s of additional flights per hour over urban areas whilst minimising auditory and visual noise
We hear from experts including:
Dr Michael Patteron - Aerospace Technologist at NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC)
Ken Goodrich - Senior Research Engineer at NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC)
Dr Jaiwon Shin - Associate Administrator at NASA's Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD)
James Grimsley - President and CEO of Design Intelligence Incorporated
Adrienne Lindgren - Urban Aviation Innovation Consultant at WSP
Nancy Mendonca - Portfolio Manager at NASA, Helicopter Pilot and Deputy - UAM Coordination & Assessment Team
You can read more about some of the top talent from NASA who've moved to industry in our post The NASA Aerospace 'Ninjas' helping Uber Elevate.