Sensis Corp., of Syracuse, N.Y., was selected by NASA for the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD) Super Density Operations Airspace Design (SDOAD) project. Sensis will develop airspace definitions, including procedures and routes, which will enable NASA to more effectively and accurately research concepts related to FAA’s Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) to increase capacity at high volume, complex airports and surrounding airspaces, according to Sensis.
As part of its NextGen initiative, NASA is examining a number of new operational concepts aimed at addressing capacity challenges at major U.S. airports. Under terms of the contract, Sensis will model the arrival and departure traffic routes for six major Southern California metroplex airports including Los Angeles International, Burbank, Ontario, Long Beach, Santa Ana and San Diego. The project will entail characterization of traffic flow route and altitude ranges; analysis, modeling and design of continuous descent and standard arrival procedures as well as future departure procedures; and trajectory-based evaluation of the modeled procedures. NASA will use the definitions to accurately test new concepts, including automated arrival concepts.
“Current U.S. airport capacity is far less than the forecasted demand. One of the goals of NextGen is to develop new procedures that will unlock capacity by increasing operational efficiencies,” said Ken Kaminski, vice president and general manager, Sensis Air Traffic Systems. “This project looks at a complex high traffic metroplex to identify the individual operational characteristics that need to be taken into account to accurately test NextGen capacity improvement concepts before the concepts are further matured.”
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