CANSO, NASA and the FAA discuss “Collaborating on our Future Skies”

Mountain View, California, September 23, 2022 – Representatives from NASA, the FAA and the Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation (CANSO) as well as leaders from organisations that are at the forefront of technology, services and innovation in unmanned aviation, are meeting in California this week to collaborate on a blueprint for future skies.

The meeting was born out of a desire to increase collaboration between the manned and unmanned aviation and space industries and to share the work that NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and CANSO are doing to create a seamless, safe and sustainable future airspace. The meeting also provides a platform to receive feedback and to consider how the industry can work together on creating an exciting future for air mobility.

During the week, CANSO and the Complete Air Traffic System Global Council shared their vision for the skies of 2045 and associated roadmap, while NASA presented Sky for All – a highly automated, cooperative, and scalable airspace that ensures equitable access for airspace users. The FAA presented its work on its foundation for a future “info-centric” NAS built for diverse operations that are supported by a resilient and evolving infrastructure.

Michelle Bishop, CANSO Director Programmes, following the meeting commented “Today’s meeting was a valuable opportunity to discuss alignment of our future visions and explore how we work together with industry to meet the growing need for innovation in how we integrate our airspace within ambitious timelines. We heard loud and clear the need to accommodate agile approaches that will provide safe airspace access in the near term while we continue to optimise our airspace for the longer term.”

The Complete Air Traffic System (CATS) Global Council is a forum of industry bodies, convened by CANSO with the aim of examining how we can achieve a fully scalable, sustainable and resilient airspace system and be able to integrate the ever-growing variety of new airspace users into our skies. The end goal is to safely manage the proliferation of emerging vehicle types, all with different capabilities and operational needs.

Today the Council comprises leaders from over 60 organisations such as IATA, ACI, Airbus, Boeing, Wing, Joby aviation, Altitude Angel, NASA, and air navigation service providers from across the globe.

The Council launched its vision last October; “to create a global airspace that is safe, fair, intelligent and interoperable, leveraging revolutionised design, technology and services to power global mobility and prosperity”. Earlier this year, a roadmap of long-term goals, actions and milestones was released.

In the next phase, the CATS Global Council will start advancing the workplan outlined in the roadmap.

“Implementing the roadmap is a challenging task, but it will allow us to better co-ordinate, focus and prioritise our joint energies on the right things we need to do to realise our vision and to ensure we achieve the interoperable harmonised sky that we all desire,” Eduardo García González, CANSO Manager of European ATM Coordination and Safety, commented.

Read more about the roadmap here.