NearSpace operations – barrier between aviation and space or the path to integration?

Abstract

NearSpace operations in the stratosphere are not limited to balloons and as new operational models emerge there will be increasing impact on the airspace and access through it. The unmanned aircraft community and high-altitude industry is exerting increasing pressure on the aviation community to develop new models for airspace management. While some concepts may provide models that are exportable to a space traffic management regime, others may create new access barriers for the space community. Strategic separation creates an approach that considers the needs of all airspace users through coordinated planning to allow vehicles to follow their optimal flight trajectory while assuring separation from takeoff or launch on the ground, through all phases of flight including persistent operations in NearSpace to eliminate tactical interventions as much as possible. To accomplish this task, it is necessary to adapt NearSpace airspace to cope with the strategic control approach and implement a structure that allows for efficient management. The creation of large operational blocks of airspace at stratospheric altitudes, following the concept of Functional Airspace Blocks, or FABs, could create an integrated supranational construct for the provision of flight centric traffic management. This approach can also serve as an efficient means to interoperate between air and space traffic management by serving as a bridge between the domains.