SATS

Small Aircraft Transportation System - SATS

The NASA Langley Research Center has installed the CANaerospace/AGATE databus in two research aircraft used for the SATS program flight tests.

The Small Aircraft Transportation System, SATS, is a partnership among various organizations including NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), US aviation industry, state and local aviation officials, and universities. The project's initial focus is to prove that new operating capabilities will enable safe and affordable access to virtually any runway in most weather conditions. These new operating capabilities rely on on-board computing, advanced flight controls, Highway in the Sky displays, and automated air traffic separation and sequencing technologies.

The CANaerospace bus is used as a backbone network for flight state sensors, navigation systems and several research PCs driving high resolution flat panel displays installed in the cockpit. NECScompact systems, developed and delivered by Stock Flight Systems of Germany provide the interface between the various avionics boxes. To learn more about the aircraft installation, please download the NASA presentation.

For research purposes, the two Langley aircraft will be equipped with an airborne instrumentation system which records all relevant flight state data including the CANaerospace information. Together with a voice/video recording installation, the high amount of data generated by the test flights will allow a thorough analysis of the crew assistance provided by the advanced cockpit interfaces.

The highly reputated NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia is the site where many of the astronauts of the Mercury and Apollo space programs were trained. The aeronautics division operates a variety of research aircraft including a Boeing 757, a Northrop T38, a Beech 200 King Air, an OV-10 Bronco and a UH1-D helicopter. The airplanes used for the SATS flight tests are a Cirrus SR-22 and a Lancair LC-40. Due to the good experience during system integration, the NASA Langley Research Center is evaluating the use of CANaerospace in other research aircraft as well.