The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is currently undertaking a broad program known as Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) to develop, introduce, and certify new technologies into the National Airspace System. NextGen is a fundamentally transformative change that is being implemented incrementally over a period of many years. Currently, the FAA is putting into place the foundation that provides support for the future building blocks of a fully operational NextGen. NextGen is a challenging undertaking that includes ground systems, avionics installed in a wide range of aircraft, and procedures to take advantage of the new technology. Transformation in the Air assesses the FAA's plan for research on methods and procedures to improve both confidence in and the timeliness of certification of new technologies for their introduction into the National Airspace System. This report makes recommendations to include both ground and air elements and document the plan's relationship to the other activities and procedures required for certification and implementation into the National Airspace System.
Advancing the state of aviation safety is a central mission of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Congress requested this review of NASA's aviation safety-related research programs, seeking an assessment of whether the programs have well-defined, prioritized, and appropriate research objectives; whether resources have been allocated appropriately among these objectives; whether the programs are well coordinated with the safety research programs of the Federal Aviation Administration; and whether suitable mechanisms are in place for transitioning the research results into operational technologies and procedures and certification activities in a timely manner. Advancing Aeronautical Safety contains findings and recommendations with respect to each of the main aspects of the review sought by Congress. These findings indicate that NASA's aeronautics research enterprise has made, and continues to make, valuable contributions to aviation system safety but it is falling short and needs improvement in some key respects.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is currently undertaking a broad program known as Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) to develop, introduce, and certify new technologies into the National Airspace System. NextGen is a fundamentally transformative change that is being implemented incrementally over a period of many years. Currently, the FAA is putting into place the foundation that provides support for the future building blocks of a fully operational NextGen. NextGen is a challenging undertaking that includes ground systems, avionics installed in a wide range of aircraft, and procedures to take advantage of the new technology. Transformation in the Air assesses the FAA's plan for research on methods and procedures to improve both confidence in and the timeliness of certification of new technologies for their introduction into the National Airspace System. This report makes recommendations to include both ground and air elements and document the plan's relationship to the other activities and procedures required for certification and implementation into the National Airspace System.
Decades of continuous efforts to address known hazards in the national airspace system (NAS) and to respond to issues illuminated by analysis of incidents and accidents have made commercial airlines the safest mode of transportation. The task of maintaining a high level of safety for commercial airlines is complicated by the dynamic nature of the NAS. The number of flights by commercial transports is increasing; air traffic control systems and procedures are being modernized to increase the capacity and efficiency of the NAS; increasingly autonomous systems are being developed for aircraft and ground systems, and small aircraftâ€"most notably unmanned aircraft systemsâ€"are becoming much more prevalent. As the NAS evolves to accommodate these changes, aviation safety programs will also need to evolve to ensure that changes to the NAS do not inadvertently introduce new risks. Real-time system-wide safety assurance (RSSA) is one of six focus areas for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) aeronautics program. NASA envisions that an RSSA system would provide a continuum of information, analysis, and assessment that supports awareness and action to mitigate risks to safety. Maintaining the safety of the NAS as it evolves will require a wide range of safety systems and practices, some of which are already in place and many of which need to be developed. This report identifies challenges to establishing an RSSA system and the high-priority research that should be implemented by NASA and other interested parties in government, industry, and academia to expedite development of such a system.
New Worlds, New Horizons in Astronomy and Astrophysics (NWNH), the report of the 2010 decadal survey of astronomy and astrophysics, put forward a vision for a decade of transformative exploration at the frontiers of astrophysics. This vision included mapping the first stars and galaxies as they emerge from the collapse of dark matter and cold clumps of hydrogen, finding new worlds in a startlingly diverse population of extrasolar planets, and exploiting the vastness and extreme conditions of the universe to reveal new information about the fundamental laws of nature. NWNH outlined a compelling program for understanding the cosmic order and for opening new fields of inquiry through the discovery areas of gravitational waves, time-domain astronomy, and habitable planets. Many of these discoveries are likely to be enabled by cyber-discovery and the power of mathematics, physics, and imagination. To help realize this vision, NWNH recommended a suite of innovative and powerful facilities, along with balanced, strong support for the scientific community engaged in theory, data analysis, technology development, and measurements with existing and new instrumentation. Already in the first half of the decade, scientists and teams of scientists working with these cutting-edge instruments and with new capabilities in data collection and analysis have made spectacular discoveries that advance the NWNH vision. New Worlds, New Horizons: A Midterm Assessment reviews the responses of NASA's Astrophysics program, NSF's Astronomy program, and DOE's Cosmic Frontiers program to NWNH. This report describes the most significant scientific discoveries, technical advances, and relevant programmatic changes in astronomy and astrophysics over the years since the publication of the decadal survey, and assesses how well the Agencies' programs address the strategies, goals, and priorities outlined in the 2010 decadal survey.
Space-based observations have transformed our understanding of Earth, its environment, the solar system and the universe at large. During past decades, driven by increasingly advanced science questions, space observatories have become more sophisticated and more complex, with costs often growing to billions of dollars. Although these kinds of ever-more-sophisticated missions will continue into the future, small satellites, ranging in mass between 500 kg to 0.1 kg, are gaining momentum as an additional means to address targeted science questions in a rapid, and possibly more affordable, manner. Within the category of small satellites, CubeSats have emerged as a space-platform defined in terms of (10 cm x 10 cm x 10 cm)- sized cubic units of approximately 1.3 kg each called "U's." Historically, CubeSats were developed as training projects to expose students to the challenges of real-world engineering practices and system design. Yet, their use has rapidly spread within academia, industry, and government agencies both nationally and internationally. In particular, CubeSats have caught the attention of parts of the U.S. space science community, which sees this platform, despite its inherent constraints, as a way to affordably access space and perform unique measurements of scientific value. The first science results from such CubeSats have only recently become available; however, questions remain regarding the scientific potential and technological promise of CubeSats in the future. Achieving Science with CubeSats reviews the current state of the scientific potential and technological promise of CubeSats. This report focuses on the platform's promise to obtain high- priority science data, as defined in recent decadal surveys in astronomy and astrophysics, Earth science and applications from space, planetary science, and solar and space physics (heliophysics); the science priorities identified in the 2014 NASA Science Plan; and the potential for CubeSats to advance biology and microgravity research. It provides a list of sample science goals for CubeSats, many of which address targeted science, often in coordination with other spacecraft, or use "sacrificial," or high-risk, orbits that lead to the demise of the satellite after critical data have been collected. Other goals relate to the use of CubeSats as constellations or swarms deploying tens to hundreds of CubeSats that function as one distributed array of measurements.
The Next Generation Air Transportation System's (NextGen) goal is the transformation of the U.S. national airspace system through programs and initiatives that could make it possible to shorten routes, navigate better around weather, save time and fuel, reduce delays, and improve capabilities for monitoring and managing of aircraft. A Review of the Next Generation Air Transportation provides an overview of NextGen and examines the technical activities, including human-system design and testing, organizational design, and other safety and human factor aspects of the system, that will be necessary to successfully transition current and planned modernization programs to the future system. This report assesses technical, cost, and schedule risk for the software development that will be necessary to achieve the expected benefits from a highly automated air traffic management system and the implications for ongoing modernization projects. The recommendations of this report will help the Federal Aviation Administration anticipate and respond to the challenges of implementing NextGen.
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