Safety Assessments of ATM R&D Projects

Abstract

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Advanced Air Transportation Technologies (AATT) project was charged with managing the research and development (R&D) of a portfolio of air traffic management (ATM) decision support tools (DSTs) and Distributed Air/Ground Traffic Management (DAG-TM) concept elements (CEs). These DSTs and CEs were designed to increase the capacity, efficiency, and flexibility of the National Airspace System (NAS) while maintaining the current level of safety of the NAS. This paper provides a case study of safety assessments in the context of an institutional R&D program, describing the safety assessment framework and methodology used by the AATT project to ensure that safety assessments met both NASA R&D objectives and FAA safety requirements. To illustrate the framework and methodology, this paper presents two AATT safety assessment case studies. The first uses results from the safety assessments of a DST to illustrate the AATT safety assessment framework and methodology. The second uses results from an interim safety assessment of a DAG-TM CE to illustrate how interim NASAinternal safety assessments were geared to provide constructive feedback to the R&D process. This paper underscores the idea that during the R&D phase, safety assessments must be conducted in a manner that provides the most constructive feedback/input to the R&D process.