Stamp of Approval: NASA Chooses Zipline to explore “Operations of Autonomous Fleets”

Zipline, a leader in the “Drones for Good” sec­tor, deliv­er­ing med­i­cines and health-care prod­ucts pri­mar­i­ly around Africa, has been giv­en a major stamp of approval by NASA, reports a press release. The Space Admin­is­tra­tion Agency has cho­sen Zipline to explore “oper­a­tions of autonomous fleets”, where the San Fran­cis­co-based drone deliv­ery com­pa­ny has signed a Space Act Agree­ment “to pur­sue a future vision of U.S avi­a­tion that includes deliv­ery drones and air taxis.”

What is a Space Act?

https://www.nasa.gov/partnerships/faqs.html

To help “realise this vision” NASA has cre­at­ed a new acronym: m:N.

m:N. Expla­na­tion of New NASA Acronym

https://nari.arc.nasa.gov/ttt-ram/multi-vehicle

The Part­ner­ship Team

The release states, “NASA researchers are devel­op­ing tools and tech­niques to enable m:N oper­a­tions, where a small num­ber of humans (m) effec­tive­ly man­age many autonomous vehi­cles (N). This research includes close coor­di­na­tion with the avi­a­tion com­mu­ni­ty to under­stand indus­try and pub­lic needs for these types of oper­a­tions.”

Kel­ley Hashe­mi, the tech­ni­cal lead for autonomous sys­tems at NASA’s Ames Research Cen­tre in Cal­i­for­nia, com­ment­ed, “Such col­lab­o­ra­tions are impor­tant, as it’s crit­i­cal for NASA to gath­er the community’s input in order to achieve mean­ing­ful progress towards this future vision of U.S. avi­a­tion.”

Zipline cur­rent­ly uses m:N oper­a­tions to trans­port med­ical sup­plies and con­sumer goods in North­west Arkansas, Japan, Ghana, and Rwan­da. Zipline aims to give back to the avi­a­tion com­mu­ni­ty by shar­ing its many lessons learned.

The release con­tin­ues, “Through this part­ner­ship, NASA will use Zipline’s expe­ri­ence to find solu­tions for broad­ly imple­ment­ing m:N oper­a­tions in the U.S. air­space. In return, Zipline can lever­age NASA’s tools and research to deter­mine what is need­ed to expand its fleet oper­a­tions in the Unit­ed States.”

Conor French

Conor French, Gen­er­al Coun­sel of Zipline, said, “Pub­lic-pri­vate coop­er­a­tion is essen­tial to expand­ing drone deliv­ery and unlock­ing its ben­e­fits for more peo­ple. This part­ner­ship is an impor­tant step in that direc­tion. We’re excit­ed to work with NASA to accel­er­ate growth in drone deliv­ery, both in the U.S. and abroad.”

The col­lab­o­ra­tion will also con­sid­er a vari­ety of use cas­es and address­es bar­ri­ers such as tech­ni­cal, reg­u­la­to­ry, safe­ty assur­ance, and com­mu­ni­ty accep­tance. This part­ner­ship will advance the scal­a­bil­i­ty of future U.S. air­space by lay­ing the ground­work for a new oper­a­tional par­a­digm.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.flyzipline.com/

https://www.nasa.gov/