Extensible Traffic Management

The sky is not the limit for futuristic air vehicles that will journey to the edge of Earth – or upper Class E airspace. Operations in this layer of the National Airspace System (NAS) take place over 60,000 feet above mean sea level. A large amount of the airspace above the United States is designated as Class E, which provides opportunities for innovative aircraft like high altitude, long endurance vehicles, unmanned free balloons, and supersonic aircraft to take off. Until recently, routine operations in upper Class E airspace remained unexplored, which means the rules of the sky need to be written.

The Extensible Traffic Management subproject, or xTM, framework will catalyze the airspace community to meet their operational needs for Upper Class E Traffic Management, or ETM, above 60,000 feet while minimizing disruptions to other operations in the NAS. As a collaboration between NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration, and industry partners, ETM also will investigate how to modify and implement successfully proven concepts developed for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM) and Urban Air Mobility (UAM) to the unique skyscape of upper Class E.