Objectives

The higher airspace (airspace approximately 60,000 ft) is no longer exclusive to space rockets and military planes, but hosts an expanding range of vehicles, including long-endurance balloons, high altitude platform stations (HAPS), supersonic and hypersonic aircraft. With missions varying from connectivity and surveillance to passenger transport and satellite services, these vehicles with vastly different operating characteristics present a new airspace management challenge. The project will build on research from the ECHO project on developing a concept of operations (CONOPS) for higher airspace. Specifically, the project will focus on introducing to the CONOPS a module on space launch real-time monitoring, and packages covering ground and air-ground operational integration procedures.