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The FAA has announced that back in October 2016, it used a UAS to test its new surveillance technology, to see if the technology is cable of detecting and tracking commercial spacecraft entering the National Air Space. The flight was conducted by the Near Space Corporation (NSC).

During the test, which took place in Tillamook, Oregon, a stratospheric balloon carried a High Altitude Shuttle System (HASS) UAS 70,000 feet in the air before releasing it. Once released, the UAS, equipped with a payload built to detect and track commercial spacecraft, embarked on a semiautonomous glide flight that simulated how a winged spacecraft would enter into Class A-controlled airspace.

Using its new surveillance technology onboard the UAS, the FAA tracked the HASS UAS from the Seattle Air Traffic Control Center. It took the UAS approximately 30 minutes to return back to its launch site.

The flight was funded by NASA’s Flight Opportunities program, which is under NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. 

Via a NASA press release, Flight Opportunities campaign manager Paul De Leon says, “flight testing and advancing technologies needed by the FAA to allow detection and surveillance of future spacecraft while entering the national airspace is crucial for the Flight Opportunities program.”

“The program is continuing to grow by adding new commercial suborbital launch vehicles as they become viable, which can increase opportunities for maturing technologies much needed for future space exploration.”

The flight was conducted under the first FAA UAS test site for UAS high-altitude Certificate of Authorization (COA). For the NSC, it became the first commercial suborbital space company to do a flight test under the FAA’s new UAS rules, which were passed in August 2016.

“It was great to get this first flight with the new COA under our belt,” says Near Space CEO Tim Lachenmeier. “It took a long time, and a lot of dedicated support from the FAA to get this accomplished.”

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