Amendment 71: F.11 Stand-Alone Landing Site-Agnostic Payloads and Research Investigations on the Surface of the Moon Final Text and Due Dates Released.A drone is shown flying during a test of Unmanned Aircraft Systems Traffic Management technical capability Level 2 at Reno-Stead Airport, Nevada in 2016. During the test, five drones simultaneously crossed paths, separated by different altitudes. Two drones flew beyond visual line of sight and three flew within line-of-sight of their operators.
For BVLOS flights to become routine, trusted automation technology needs to be built into drone and airspace systems, since pilots or air traffic controllers won’t be able to see all the drones operating at once. To address these challenges, NASA developed several key technologies, most notably Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management , which allows for digital sharing of each drone user’s planned flight details.
With UTM, each drone user can have the same situational awareness of the airspace where drones are flying. This foundation of technology development, led by NASA’s UTM project, allows drones to fly BVLOS today with special FAA approval.