What is National Campaign?
From air taxiing passengers and cargo in urban areas, to infrastructure inspection missions, the Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) ecosystem offered newfound capabilities which have led to an increasing range of commercial applications and opportunities for use. However, with new technologies come novel challenges, which is the case for integrating highly automated and remotely piloted aircraft into the National Airspace System (NAS). To promote public confidence and help the community understand what it takes to conduct safe and efficient AAM operations in urban, suburban, rural, and regional environments, NASA collaborated with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and industry partners to conduct a series of “National Campaigns”. The National Campaign (NC) testing series helped NASA identify AAM barriers, validate the state of the art, and inform the design and integration of vehicle, airspace, and ground infrastructure.
Building on its legacy of work in air traffic management for crewed aircraft and its key role in the success of NASA’s Unmanned aircraft systems Traffic Management (UTM) efforts, the Airspace Operations Laboratory (AOL) led the integration and testing of the AAM ecosystem for the National Campaign that helped inform airspace integration requirements to enable safe, efficient, and scalable AAM operations in the NAS.
Purpose and Research Approach
The purpose of this research was to address information requirements and provide lessons learned to inform FAA policy decisions on safety, certification, operations, and airspace integration aspects of AAM. The main objectives included:
- Demonstrating an airspace system architecture based on NASA’s UTM construct
- Developing flight procedure guidelines
- Evaluating communication, navigation and surveillance options
- Collecting initial assessments of passenger and community perspectives on vehicle ground noise, cabin noise, and on-board ride quality
Role of the Airspace Operations Lab in the National Campaign (NC)
During simulations and flight tests, the AOL served as the base of operations for systems integration, which incorporated systems and software from the AOL UTM-like architecture, NASA’s Aviation Systems Division, and test range ground infrastructure. Some of the outcomes of this work included automation technology for operator negotiations, air traffic service coordination tools, display development, and human factors evaluation.
Activities
Over the course of 2 years, the AOL participated in 7 National Campaign flight tests, alongside government and industry partners. Below are a few highlights of that work.
National Campaign (NC) and partner Joby Aviation conduct first ever flight test with all-electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft
The Airspace Operations Lab tests out a new Mobile Operations Facility (MOF) for National Campaign.
The Airspace Operations Lab supports the Follow On Flight Test for National Campaign.
Facts Only
* NASA collaborated with the FAA and industry partners to conduct National Campaigns.
* The National Campaign testing series aimed to identify AAM barriers, validate state-of-the-art, and inform infrastructure design.
* The Airspace Operations Laboratory (AOL) led the integration and testing of the AAM ecosystem for the National Campaign.
* Research objectives included demonstrating an airspace system architecture based on NASA’s UTM construct, developing flight procedure guidelines, evaluating communication/navigation/surveillance, and collecting public perspectives on noise and ride quality.
* The AOL served as the base for systems integration incorporating systems from AOL UTM-like architecture, NASA’s Aviation Systems Division, and test range ground infrastructure during simulations and tests.
* Over two years, the AOL participated in 7 National Campaign flight tests with government and industry partners.
* Highlights included a flight test with all-electric eVTOL aircraft by NC and Joby Aviation.
* The Airspace Operations Lab tested a new Mobile Operations Facility (MOF) for the National Campaign.
Executive Summary
NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and industry partners conducted National Campaigns to promote public confidence and understanding regarding Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) operations in various environments. The goal was to identify AAM barriers, validate current state-of-the-art, and inform the design of vehicle, airspace, and ground infrastructure. The Airspace Operations Laboratory (AOL) led the integration and testing of the AAM ecosystem for these campaigns, informing airspace integration requirements for safe, efficient, and scalable operations in the National Airspace System (NAS).
The research objectives included demonstrating an airspace system architecture based on NASA’s UTM construct, developing flight procedure guidelines, evaluating communication, navigation, and surveillance options, and collecting community perspectives on noise and ride quality. The AOL's role involved integrating systems from the AOL UTM-like architecture, NASA's Aviation Systems Division, and ground infrastructure during simulations and tests. Over two years, the AOL participated in seven National Campaign flight tests with partners, including a first flight test with all-electric eVTOL aircraft and testing of a Mobile Operations Facility (MOF).
Full Take
The framework established through the National Campaigns reveals a necessary, multi-faceted approach to deploying novel aviation technologies like AAM, moving beyond purely technological validation to incorporate operational, regulatory, and public acceptance factors. The emphasis on integrating NASA’s UTM construct into airspace architecture suggests that safety and efficiency in urban environments are fundamentally dependent not just on aircraft performance but on the seamless management of low-altitude operations across complex, heterogeneous environments. The AOL's role highlights a pattern where cutting-edge systems (like autonomous and remotely piloted aircraft) require layered operational frameworks—combining UTM-like structures with human factors evaluations to ensure scalable implementation in the NAS.
The challenge for future development lies in ensuring that the lessons learned from these large-scale tests translate effectively into concrete, enforceable policy regarding certification, airspace integration, and community acceptance. A potential blind spot exists in fully quantifying the long-term systemic impacts of noise and ride quality versus the immediate gains in operational capability. The pattern suggests that technical achievement must be inextricably linked to socio-technical integration; if infrastructure and policy lags behind technological readiness, public confidence erodes, regardless of engineering success.
What data is missing regarding the scalability of the AOL's integration methods across diverse regulatory regimes? How do these large campaign results inform the specific decision-making thresholds for the FAA when balancing innovation speed against operational safety in dynamic urban settings? And what mechanisms are necessary to ensure that community perspectives collected during testing translate into binding, adaptable policy rather than becoming static inputs?
Sentinel — Human
The text reads like an official briefing or press release detailing a complex, multi-agency research collaboration regarding AAM safety testing, characteristic of factual institutional reporting.