October 22, 1999

Contact:
Kevin R. Brown, Vice President-Business Development
Command and Control Technologies Corporation
(407) 264-1193

Titusville,FL. NASA has selected Command and Control Technologies Corporation (CCT) to conduct research into the impact of proposed new reusable launch vehicles on the national airspace system. Awarded as a small business innovative research project from NASA Ames Research Center, a leading research institution in aeronautical planning and technology, the study will lead to tools for safely planning and controlling airspace operations for reusable launch vehicles.

  
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Federal regulators are considering a dramatic new approach to airspace management in the 21st century to deal with the continued growth of airspace use and the resulting pressure to optimize flight routing to reduce costs. The possibility of adding launch and landing operations for space vehicles operating from coastal and inland launch sites adds a level of complication to the new system that will be explored in this study. While the normal ascent phase of reusable launch vehicles closely resembles that of traditional launch vehicles, this can change quickly as RLV’s have the capability to terminate flight during the ascent phase and attempt to land at the launch site or other commercial spaceports or airports.

The first phase of the project will focus on production of prototype tools to manage these new dynamic spaceways. The prototype tools will provide trajectory planning for RLV launch, abort, and landing scenarios; the ability to share information as soon as it is generated between airspace controllers and launch vehicle operators; air traffic and RLV interference prediction; and integrated weather data and real time weather visualization.

The University of Central Florida Institute for Simulation and Training will also participate in the project. IST will adapt military simulation technology to render complex air corridors in a 3D computer-generated setting. The graphics generator, known as a Virtual Workbench, is a tabletop display device that projects holograph-like images above the table.

Janice Horn, Principal Investigator for the research project, said, "We are excited at the prospect of coupling real-time software technology with advanced visualization technology to explore the future of space transportation operations in the national airspace system. This research is strategically important to CCT as we sharpen our focus on spaceport and launch vehicle customers."

Command and Control Technologies Corporation is a spaceport technology company specializing in control systems and ground software for launch vehicles, spaceports, and spacecraft. CCT’s signature product, the Command and Control ToolKit™(CCTK), is based on software technology licensed from NASA. For further information on CCT or CCTK call Kevin Brown at (407) 264-1193, or see www.cctcorp.com.