Airborne: Reborn / Volume I / July 6th 2020
As the coronavirus pandemic continues to impact the aviation and aerospace industries in unprecedented ways we explore some of the innovative uses unmanned systems are being put to around the world, at an accelerated pace during the pandemic, in markets as diverse as Canada, India and Mexico.
We also get a glimpse of how autonomous aircraft systems are progressing in the hands of aircraft giants Boeing and Airbus, albeit in quite different use cases. US public heavyweights the FAA and NASA push forward with campaigns focused on different parts of the Advanced / Urban Air Mobility arena. Meanwhile Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) test projects continue to evolve in the US and BAE Systems muscles further into the aircraft electrification market.
In commercial space this week SpaceX helped the US Space Force upgrade the GPS constellation, RocketLab suffered their first failed launch and the British Government stumped up half a billion dollars as part of a consortium that's acquiring beleaguered OneWeb out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
TOP STORY: FAA Publishes first Concept of Operations (CONOPS) for Urban Air Mobility (UAM)
As reported by eVTOL.com the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) published Version 1.0 of their Concept of Operations (ConOps) for Urban Air Mobility (UAM) on June 26th, developed with NASA and industry partners. It sets out a roadmap for how aircraft will operate in distinct corridors without direct involvement from traditional Air Traffic Control (ATC).
The crawl-walk-run approach envisages that Urban Air Mobility operations will first be conducted by piloted vehicles certified to existing regulatory requirements with defined corridors being opened as the tempo of operations increases. We dive into more of the detail in our monthly New Aerospace Insight report. You can download the full document here.
Lilium outlined their vision for scalable vertiport infrastructure to support the Munich-based unicorn's Lilium Jet aircraft. External development partners will be sought to build-out the landing pads at an anticipated cost of €1-15m per location depending on location.
Journalist Brian Garrett-Glaser looked at Boeing and Kitty Hawk joint-venture Wisk's straight-to-autonomy strategy for Aviation Today. CEO Gary Gysin hinted that scheduled experience flights above New Zealand's scenic South Islands might be the initial mode of operations for their autonomous two-seat Cora aircraft.
NASA published a call for further participants in their Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) National Campaign (as reported by eVTOL Insights) with a focus on attracting 'vehicle industry partners' to demonstrate flight operations activities in 2022.
BAE Systems announced it was entering the market for energy management systems for both hybrid and all-electric aircraft. Focused on regional jets and turboprops initially it comes on top of a 2019 statement that they also intend to compete in the aircraft electrification market with flight control and power conversion systems offerings, including for eVTOL aircraft (via Urban Air Mobility News).
The Economist published an article (subscription required) about unmanned deliveries during the pandemic which included coverage of how drones are being used to provide both contactless delivery and enforce social distancing measures.
Reuters reported on the use of drones by Sincronía Logistica in Mexico to deliver surgical masks, antibacterial gel, gloves and 3D-printed face shields to healthcare workers in the country's Capital amidst nationwide protests over a lack of PPE.
DroneLife covered a proposal by Transport Canada to accelerate regulations allowing Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) operations for large cargo drones weighing 650kg / 1,433lbs without special permissions, potentially opening up remote areas for drone delivery operations more quickly than previously anticipated.
Several outlets including The Drone Girl and UAS Vision reported on the FAA's commitment to spend around $1m USD on Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) test research at the Nevada Institute for Autonomous Systems (NIAS). Switch and ANRA Technologies will help deliver the contract.
Oklahoma-based Vigilant Aerospace Systems signed a patent licensing agreement with NASA covering the use of radar in both detect-and-avoid and Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) systems.
In India the Ministry of Civil Aviation gave permission for 50kg hybrid petrol-electric drones to fly at night performing chemical spraying operations in order to disperse swarms of locusts in Rajasthan and Gujarat, as reported by The Hindu.
The Verge was amongst many outlets to cover Rocket Lab's 13th launch which ended in the company's first failure to deploy satellites into orbit for their commercial customers atop their Electron rocket. Planet Labs, Canon Electronicsand In-Space Missions lost valuable payloads as an anomaly in the second-stage resulted in loss of contact with the spacecraft. It ended a 12-launch run of success for the US company from their New Zealand launch facility having put 53 commercial satellites into orbit to date.
SpaceX successfully completed a Falcon 9 launch (their 11th of 2020) - and first-stage drone ship landing - for the US Space Force on June 30th, inserting the third Block III satellite for the Global Positioning System (GPS) into orbit. It completes the second of five GPS launches awarded to the company to date (via NASASpaceflight.com).
The British Government was announced as the successful bidder for OneWeb, the London-headquartered satellite mega-constellation company, alongside Indian telecoms company Bharti Global. Each is believed to have put around £400m GBP / $500m USD into the deal (via BBC News) in return for a "significant" equity stake in the business.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced new business segment AWS Aerospace and Satellite Solutions to be led by retired US Air Force General Clint Crosier. It builds on the company's Ground-Station-as-a-Service offering which has been available since May 2019 in partnership with Lockheed Martin (who provide the ground infrastructure) as reported by Satellite Today.
OTHER - AUTONOMY
Aviation International news (AIN) covered Airbus' announcement that they've completed two years of flight testing on their Autonomous Taxi, Take-Off and Landing (ATTOL) project. The company's UpNext business unit (working with their Silicon Valley based Acubed innovation centre) have overseen fully automatic operations in an A350-1000 widebody airliner aided by a fusion of computer vision, LiDAR and radar sensor data.
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