Page 8 - ATC Special Bulletin Series - Future Skies 2024

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| SPECIAL BULLETIN SERIES | 2024 |
This article was originally published by CORDIS
FOUNDATIONS LAID FOR SAFE UPPER AIRSPACE OPERATIONS
If higher airspace is to be used safely and efficiently by aircraft in the future, then a clear understanding of the expected demand – and the procedures that need to be put in place – needs to be articulated.
Increased air traffic will likely result in more higher airspace operations in the future. While there are already lots of plans for these types of operations – which would take place above the level of today’s conventional aircraft operations - many of them remain at the early design phase. One of the key challenges at the moment has been to capture an accurate picture of what this demand will actually look like, to ensure that these operations can be seamlessly integrated into air traffic management plans. “This anticipated demand is very diverse, ranging from slow-moving high-altitude platform systems to suborbital hypersonic vehicles,” explains ECHO project coordinator Henk Hof from EUROCONTROL in Belgium. ECHO was funded within the framework of the SESAR Joint Undertaking, a public-private partnership set up to modernise Europe’s air traffic management system. “Space operations and launch/re-entry phases also have to be included in the demand analysis,” Hof points out.
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