(Jan 26, 2021)

NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California is home to the Disaster Assistance and Rescue Team (DART) Training facility, where NASA's Scalable Traffic Management for Emergency Response Operations (STEReO) project conducted a tethered Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) flight test.

On December 23rd, 2020 the STEReO project conducted its first field test of a deployable Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) traffic management system, able to provide traffic management and data services within a standalone network. Smart Mobility at Ames flew multiple tethered flights monitored by the deployable UAS traffic management system. The purpose of the flight test was to demonstrate the technical feasibility of a deployable UAS traffic management and asset tracking system. A large part of the STEReO project is to extend NASA's UAS traffic management concept into environments where there are little to no communications infrastructure by demonstrating the feasibility of a portable, field deployable system. The STEReO team built a prototype for a portable, field deployable UAS traffic management and asset tracking system, which was deployed at the DART yard for the flight test. The STEReO team successfully exercised the system by tracking multiple live and simulated UAS flights.