“…Small drones delivering packages, air taxis carrying passengers, or air ambulance providing lifesaving transportation – these are just some of the concepts NASA’s Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) mission is helping get into our skies. For these aircraft to safely operate, cities, suburbs, and rural areas will need new or enhanced infrastructure.

Imagine a network of routes where new aircraft would fly lower than traditional aircraft. NASA researchers are currently considering the network infrastructure required to enable these aircraft to digitally communicate, as well as the surfaces they would need to take off and land.

Any time new transportation is introduced, communities have to plan how they will work with existing infrastructure and evolve with new adaptations. NASA’s Advanced Air Mobility mission is researching how adding new aviation capabilities into our everyday lives will affect communities. This includes physical areas of focus – including adding vertiports to existing airports and creating charging stations for mostly electric aircraft – and digital areas of focus, such as how aircraft will communicate with one another and with air traffic control.

NASA’s Advanced Air Mobility National Campaign is already conducting testing using helicopters to assess how new AAM aircraft will move in and out of locations. The next phase of this research involves working with partners who have electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft (eVTOLs) capable of interacting with prototype vertiports…”