ARMD ADVANCED AIR MOBILITY RESEARCH AND DEMONSTRATION ANNOUNCEMENT OF COLLABORATIVE PARTNERSHIP OPPORTUNITIES

Update 2 (March 11, 2021) An update has been made to the Announcement Question and Answer document. This updated document can be found at https://aam-cms.marqui.tech/uploads/aam-portal-cms/originals/444547c5-46bd-4979-bb19-86a371dd5cec.pdf. Update (March 4, 2021) A Question and Answer document is now available for this Announcement that provides additional information that may be helpful in preparing a proposal in response to this Announcement. This Question and Answer document also contains information and links for an AAM Partnership Strategy Virtual Industry Day that was held on November 17, 2020. The Question and Answer document can be found here https://aam-cms.marqui.tech/uploads/aam-portal-cms/originals/3695af24-ad32-41e9-ae98-605991a6cc7e.pdf . Announcement Name: ARMD Advanced Air Mobility Research and Demonstration “Announcement of Collaborative Partnership Opportunities”, hereafter called “Announcement” Goal/Intent: With this Announcement, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is emphasizing its commitment to supporting the Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) industry and community in addressing key safety and integration barriers by hosting an AAM National Campaign series and conducting key AAM research and evaluation activities. NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD) is inviting proposals from: AAM industry and community partners (including vehicle developers, airspace providers and infrastructure providers) to begin information exchange in preparation for National Campaign – 2 (NC-2) activities in 2024 AAM vehicle and avionics partners to collaboratively evaluate functionality, architectures, integration and testing techniques for vehicle automation technologies, and develop guidelines, standards to inform regulatory change and methods of compliance for automation technologies critical to safe and scalable AAM operations Local/regional/state/tribal government and community organizations to demonstrate and prepare for early adoption of AAM services AAM vehicle developers to provide a full-scale vehicle test articles for crash safety testing and assessment Communication, navigation, and surveillance technology developers and providers for evaluation of their systems in representative AAM flight environments Eligibility: U.S. entities may submit proposals to any of the areas of interest listed in this Announcement. Proposals under this Announcement from international entities are limited to those from vehicle developers submitting for information exchange and preparation for NC-2 flight activities in 2024. Key Dates: Release of Announcement: February 2021 Proposal Due Date: April 2, 2021, 2:00 PM PST 1. Announcement Overview 1.1. Overview 1.2. AAM Goals and Mutual Benefits 1.3. FAA Coordination 2. Partnership Categories 2.1. National Campaign – 2 Information Exchange 2.2. Automated Flight and Contingency Management 2.3. AAM Community Planning and Integration 2.4. AAM Crashworthiness Research and Testing 2.5. Communication, Navigational and Surveillance Flight Testing 3. Partnership and Proposal Information 3.1. Proposal Instructions 3.2. Submission Instructions 3.3. Key Dates 3.4. Eligibility 3.5. Participant Requirements 4. National Campaign – 2 Information Exchange Annex Reference Attachment titled: ACO-3 Announcement AAM Research – 2021-02-24 5. Automated Flight and Contingency Management Partnership Reference Attachment titled: ACO-3 Announcement AAM Research – 2021-02-24 6. AAM Community Planning and Integration Annex Reference Attachment titled: ACO-3 Announcement AAM Research – 2021-02-24 7. AAM Crashworthiness Research and Testing Annex Reference Attachment titled: ACO-3 Announcement AAM Research – 2021-02-24 8. CNS Flight Testing Annex Reference Attachment titled: ACO-3 Announcement AAM Research – 2021-02-24 9. List of Attachments Announcement Overview Overview NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD) is committed to working with industry, government and community groups and stakeholders to promote public confidence and accelerate the realization of emerging aviation markets, including Advanced Air Mobility, for passenger and cargo transportation in urban, suburban, rural and regional environments. As part of ARMD’s mission, results and lessons learned from cutting-edge research activities, flight testing and demonstrations will be publicly disseminated to the maximum extent possible to provide benefit for industry, government and the general public. For the purpose of this Announcement, NASA views the term Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) to cover transformative and disruptive aerial transportation systems and networks for mobilizing people and things in ways that have not been available to the public before, and reaching to places which are not practical today due to safety, cost, noise, airspace, infrastructure and other limitations. AAM can be characterized by: (1) novel vehicle configurations that are enabled by electrification of the propulsion system inclusive of all-electric and hybrid-electric propulsion architectures; (2) levels of vehicle autonomous operations and reduced pilot/operator workload while achieving improved trajectory compliance; and (3) operations at densities that cannot be managed by current air traffic management system architectures. AAM missions include but are not limited to local missions in rural areas and those within complex and challenging urban environments, often referred to as Urban Air Mobility (UAM), as well as intraregional operations between cities and between metropolitan and rural areas. In order to characterize levels and capabilities of UAM operations around urban areas, NASA created the UAM Maturity Level (UML)[1] scale that is intended to characterize significant phases expected during the evolution of a UAM transportation system from the current state of the art of prototype vehicles at UML-0, to a highly developed, future state where UAM is a ubiquitous capability, similar to automobiles today, at UML-6. The UML scale was primarily developed to represent the maturity of UAM development and operation around urban areas but is also applicable to AAM development and operation for use cases that extended beyond urban environments. ARMDs long-term strategy for AAM is focused primarily on helping to enable future systems and operations at a UML-4 level that is characterized by medium total traffic levels, medium complexity of operations, and a reliance on collaborative and responsible automation. UML-4 is representative of 10s to 100s of vehicles performing AAM commercial operations in urban areas, and NASA activities are phased to help the AAM ecosystem accelerate progress with the goal of enabling UML-4 level operations in the 2030 timeframe. A center element of the ARMD strategy around AAM is the National Campaign (NC) series that is designed to facilitate and advance testing and demonstration of AAM vehicles and operations. The NC is intended to also facilitate and improve the management of air traffic in an AAM setting towards achieving commercial AAM operations and ultimately UML-4 level operations and demonstrate and evaluate critical infrastructure that is required to enable commercial operations. The NC was previously known as the “Urban Air Mobility Grand Challenge (UAM GC)”, and NC includes an expansion in scope from the original UAM GC to be inclusive of all AAM systems and markets, whereas the original UAM GC scope focused on UAM only. The NC is inclusive of short take-off and landing (STOL) and vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) vehicles to provide an order of magnitude increase in aviation access points to the general public with intended use cases of passenger-carrying, as well as cargo and surveillance applications. Target flight environments include urban, as well as suburban, rural, regional, and interregional, with example flight ranges up to 500 miles. In addition to the National Campaign, the ARMD strategy for AAM includes technology research and evaluation activities that leverage NASA unique capabilities, expertise and facilities to advance the state of the art for public benefit in key AAM technology and capability areas. The robust AAM research portfolio is intended to address key barriers across vehicle, airspace, operations, and community acceptance technology areas. ARMD recognizes that partnering with industry and community organizations for technology research and evaluation activities is critical to achieving the long-term strategy of helping to enable future systems and public and private AAM operations at a UML-4 level. With this Announcement, ARMD is inviting proposals to work with NASA in five different areas. These five areas or partnership categories are described in detail in Section 2. 1.2. AAM Goals and Mutual Benefits NASA intends its contributions to AAM to “raise the water level” for the entire AAM ecosystem through a holistic operational testing and demonstration approach, robust technology research and evaluation activities, and collaboration with key community organizations and stakeholders. The goal is to accelerate development of safe, high-volume AAM flight operations in the existing and anticipated future national airspace systems. Conducting these AAM research, demonstration and evaluation activities will help the government, and AAM industry and community identify significant AAM barriers, validate the state of the art, and inform the design and integration of vehicles, airspace, and ground infrastructure systems. Broad participation from many organizations in AAM research, demonstration and evaluation activities will enable NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and the broader AAM community to develop and validate a common concept of operations (CONOPs) for AAM. This CONOPs must include flight procedures, future airspace operations management architectures, communication, navigation, and surveillance (CNS) architectures, takeoff/landing infrastructure requirements, and other items. The sooner a common CONOPs can be developed, the sooner guidance can be set for industry to begin maturing technologies and fielding systems that have a high degree of certainty to provide a return on the industry’s investment and enable safe, high-volume AAM operations. NASA activities are designed to allow for integrated testing of the different areas required for a common CONOPs so that the AAM community can obtain information and lessons learned to enable them to move forward towards commercial operations. The NASA research and evaluation portfolio in AAM will allow the AAM industry and community to learn more about new technologies and/or methodologies to address gaps that are uncovered along the way. If successful, NASA and the FAA will use the data, results and lessons learned to support the development of AAM regulatory and implementation approaches and strategies for novel AAM aircraft. The various NASA AAM research and evaluation activities will also be collecting performance data, trajectory compliance data, vehicle robustness to contingencies, pilot work load, emergency procedures, simplified pilot functions and reduced training and certification requirements, airspace communications, ground operations, infrastructure needs, and so forth that are intended to inform new infrastructure standards, pilot/operator certification standards (e.g., with aircraft that have a high level of automation), and other standards. In order for the NASA AAM activities to be a success, vehicle, airspace, infrastructure, and community entities need to be committed to collaborate and provide data to support the government’s longer-term AAM goals of developing requirements and standards to safely and efficiently open large-scale AAM markets. Each party participating in collaborative activities with NASA under this Announcement will bear the costs of their participation with no exchange of funds. Partnership with NASA will give partners access to NASA’s knowledge and lessons learned with extensive experience designing, testing, and flying one-of-a-kind aircraft, operations infrastructure, and airspace management systems, and unique set of research, evaluation and testing facilities. 1.3. FAA Coordination The close collaboration between NASA and the FAA is critical to the success of NASA’s AAM activities. NASA intends to collect data, results and lessons learned to help inform FAA policy decisions on safety, certification, operations and integration aspects of AAM. Through a NASA/FAA Inter-Agency Agreement (IAA), the FAA will be postured to capture relevant information that will inform future AAM regulatory decisions, and the AAM activities has been formulated to ensure that data collected is valid, relevant, and useful to inform these FAA AAM regulatory implementation activities. 2. Partnership Categories NASA plans to use the National Aeronautics Space Act, 51 U.S.C. § 20113(e), other transactions authority to enter into non-reimbursable Space Act Agreements (SAAs) with partners under the categories described in this Announcement. Non-reimbursable SAAs are formal partnership agreements involving NASA and a partner in a mutually beneficial activity, where each party bears the cost of its participation, and there is no exchange of funds between the parties. For this particular Announcement, NASA will be leveraging an Umbrella and Annex SAA mechanism, where each partner will sign a separate Umbrella Agreement, and one or more Annexes that cover the mutually beneficial activities. The Umbrella Agreement is a single governing instrument that contains all common terms and conditions and establishes an over-arching legal framework of the agreement for each partner and would remain in-place for a period of 5-years. Underneath the Umbrella Agreement with NASA, the partner will sign one or more Annexes that cover a single activity or a progression of related or phased activities, where the Annexes adopt the terms of the Umbrella Agreement and add specific details of each activity. The advantage of utilizing an Umbrella and Annex SAA mechanism is that the overarching Umbrella Agreement remains in-place while follow-on Annexes can be drafted and signed quickly, reducing the administrative burden for both NASA and the partner. Each participant in joint AAM activities covered under this Announcement will sign an Umbrella SAA with NASA. For this Announcement, there are two model Umbrella SAAs, with one drafted to cover participation by U.S. partners, and the other drafted to cover participation by international partners. Forms of the two model Umbrella SAAs that cover participation by U.S. and international partners are attached to this Announcement. Additionally, there are model Annexes that are drafted to cover AAM research, demonstration and evaluation activities covered under this Announcement. In addition to signing one of the two Umbrella Agreements, each partner will sign one or more Annexes that cover their participation in joint AAM activities with NASA. The five partnership categories covered in this Announcement are described as follows: 2.1. National Campaign – 2 Information Exchange The “National Campaign – 2 Information Exchange Annex”, or “NC-2 Information Exchange Annex”, covers AAM entities across the ecosystem that have a desire to begin information exchange with NASA for early preparation for NC-2 flight activities anticipated to be in 2024. Types of organization that are targeted for this Annex include vehicle, airspace and infrastructure partners that plan to bring vehicles, system and technologies to NC-2 flight activities, but it is also open to other AAM entities that have a desire to contribute to NC-2 activities. This Annex will facilitate necessary information exchange with intended NC-2 participants to provide early insights to their capability maturity level and design, build, test reviews in preparation for NC-2, provide feedback on AAM National Campaign Scenarios, and coordinate on information for future flight in NC-2 at a test range in the U.S. The attached AAM National Campaign Scenarios for NC-2 were developed by NASA, with the assistance of the FAA, to represent anticipated flight and simulation activities in NC-2. It is expected that these scenarios will evolve and be refined over time, and additional scenarios added as the NC series progresses. This NC-2 Information Exchange Annex is open to U.S. companies and entities in all of the areas listed above, but international participation is limited to AAM vehicle developers. The specific requirements and evaluation criteria that NASA will use to select partners for the NC-2 Information Exchange are listed below in Section 4 of the attached “ACO-3 Announcement AAM Research – 2021-02-24.pdf” document. 2.2. Automated Flight and Contingency Management ARMD has initiated an activity called Automated Flight and Contingency Management (AFCM) to conduct UAM research and flight demonstrations with the goal of informing and accelerating vehicle automation performance-based standards development and regulatory changes that will be crucial to enable the commercial, passenger-carrying, medium density, weather tolerant urban operations that characterize the UML-4 concept. AFCM is focused on the more challenging UAM operations and use cases and anticipates direct traceability of research results to the more general AAM vehicles and operations. The AFCM work portfolio was scoped to identify and impact key UML-1 through 4 concept of operations (CONOPs), automation technologies, requirements and paths to certification definitions that would benefit from research, toolset development and test activities to support industry-wide standards development and help close regulatory gaps. As such, AFCM activities are focused on the evaluation of technologies that enable (1) simplified vehicle handling for AAM aircraft, (2) automated vehicle hazard perception and avoidance, (3) automated flight path management, dynamic rerouting and management of off-nominal/emergency situations, and (4) design-time and run-time assurance for purposes of means of compliance applied to a selection of the automated functions and use cases. The pilot-automation relationship, both alerting and interactions, are also a particular focus of AFCM as current certification and approval practices make the introduction of increasingly assistive (and ultimately responsible) automation highly uncertain. The AFCM activity will also identify and develop key automation use cases, requirements, and operational interfaces and responsibilities that are needed to enable the operations that are planned for demonstration in NC-2. This body of research ensures that a generic, yet validated, framework and toolset are available for future UAM automation evaluations, to facilitate the development of standards and regulatory process change recommendations and ultimately a means of compliance throughout industry. NASA intends to leverage on-going internal research efforts and successes from past projects to develop an integrated, reference automation framework for evaluation purposes. AFCM research activities all execute a cyclic series of part-task simulations, fixed-base simulations and high-fidelity Human-In-the-Loop (HITL) motion-based simulations that will become increasingly more complex and integrated with each cycle. In addition to research and simulation efforts, AFCM will demonstrate a selection of integrated automation technologies as part of flight test evaluations in the NC series flight campaigns to collect standards-supporting data in a relevant flight test environment and verify traceability to simulation findings. This Announcement is inviting proposals from AAM vehicle and avionics entities that wish to partner with NASA on AFCM activities to develop and document design guidelines, recommendations for minimum performance-based standards, and suggestions on methods for assessing means of compliance (test methods and metrics) as they relate to reference automation architectures. By working cooperatively with industry partners, NASA expects to increase both the relevance and impact of this research to the whole AAM community. NASA is internally planning development of a reference architecture that incorporates a number of technologies (listed in Section 5 of the attached “ACO-3 Announcement AAM Research – 2021-02-24.pdf” document) for emphasis in order to evaluate, develop and document these design guidelines, recommendations for minimum performance-based standards, and suggestions on methods for assessing means of compliance. Many industry members, both vehicle manufacturers and avionics developers, are undertaking similar evaluations of analogous automated functions and safety assurance methods, and NASA desires to partner with interested developers on mutually beneficial automation activities. While NASA expects to be well-integrated into community activities through the AAM Ecosystem Working Groups and various standards activities, these touch points with industry are not considered a replacement for truly cooperative or collaborative approaches to the more fundamental research problems in the design space. The functionality and architecture of these types of automation will be heavily dependent upon CONOPs, specific use cases and airspace integration assumptions, and industry partners are best suited to bring relevant perspectives on these elements. Though the emphasis for the recommendations for minimum performance-based standards, and suggestions on methods for assessing means of compliance will need to be vehicle and automation software agnostic, the evaluation that leads to recommendations should be as comprehensive as possible. For this reason, partner-provided CONOPs, use cases, hazard analysis, vehicle and sensor performance models, simplified controls and interfaces, and automation algorithm and architectures are of great value to the cooperative research approach to making recommendations for industry-wide standards and regulatory processes. In return, partners will have access to NASA’s subject matter experts and input to the test and development process that intends to impact future industry standards, and will also have the knowledge that the research and data generated to inform the standards and regulatory processes included awareness of their vehicles and/or automation capabilities. The AFCM partnership is open to U.S. vehicle, automation technology and avionics entities to work with NASA on research and evaluation of key automation technologies needed to enable scalable AAM operations. To aid in preparing a proposal for the AFCM partnership, a sample AFCM Annex is attached to this Announcement to illustrate the type of responsibilities, schedule and milestones that NASA anticipates with this partnership. The specific requirements and evaluation criteria that NASA will use to select research partners for the AFCM are listed in Section 5 of the attached “ACO-3 Announcement AAM Research – 2021-02-24.pdf” document. 2.3. AAM Community Planning and Integration Engagement with local governments and community stakeholders is an integral part of the ARMD strategy for AAM, and for AAM to be successful, states and localities must plan for these operations and find ways to integrate AAM into their communities. Community integration includes critical considerations such as vertiport infrastructure, power, public acceptance, local policy (e.g. ordinances and zoning), multi-modal integration, etc. Strategically, this community planning and integration effort is focused on two main areas: (1) Addressing key barriers with AAM community integration towards adopting AAM services in urban areas, and (2) Addressing technical barriers across vehicle design, vehicle operation, airspace design, and airspace integration that would benefit from inputs provided by local, regional and or state decision makers. The key community integration barriers that will be explored as a result of this Announcement include: Public acceptance Supporting infrastructure Operational integration Local regulatory environment and liability The primary goal of this AAM Community Planning and Integration Annex, or “Community Annex” is to enhance local plans to enable AAM. Ideally these plans would be a part of or inform the Metropolitan Planning Organization(s)’ Transportation Plan or their Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) Plan. These plans address the current multi-modal transportation systems inclusive of cars and buses on roads, light and subway trains on rails, and pedestrians on sidewalks. Incorporating AAM into these plans is critical to the success of AAM as a whole, and specifically as a means for local communities to become leaders in adopting emerging aviation markets. Communities are already facing difficult challenges around the implementation of local infrastructure and traffic management systems to support near-term use cases for AAM. It is essential that these early local plans incorporate AAM in order to enable near-term use cases and align with national technology, policy, and regulatory efforts. NASA intends to work with partners to update and refine the above key barriers to community integration of AAM, and document the community perspective, requirements and constraints for vehicle development and operations, and airspace design and operation. Outcomes of this collaboration are anticipated to include: (1) identification of the processes a local government would use to design an AAM system that is integrated with existing and planned transportation systems becoming an integrated portion of a multi-modal transportation system, (2) participation of all the team members in these processes to incorporate AAM into local plans, and (3) a compilation of best practices, lessons learned and other information to enable adoption by multiple localities. The Community Annex is focused on locality and community-based planning organizations that have plans and desire to become “early adopter localities” for AAM. It covers participation by local/state/tribal governments and other community organizations and stakeholders that have a desire and commitment to integrate AAM operations and services into their transportation networks and serve as early adopter AAM locations. The team assembled should be composed of all the participants necessary to develop a plan for enabling AAM for that particular locality. Team membership could include state, local, tribal governments, and/or regional associations of governments/government organizations. Representatives from these entities could include transportation planners, safety or emergency response personnel and planners, infrastructure or zoning planners or personnel engaged with community outreach or collaboration. Other members of the team can include community and civic organizations that would work at local, state, regional or national levels to enable AAM operations. Teams could also include representatives from the local business community, such as real estate developers, vehicle manufacturers, and/or operators interested in investing and/or operating AAM related systems. NASA plans to work with the chosen respondent’s team to incorporate AAM into local transportation plan(s) for each locality represented in the proposal. Respondents are expected to have a specific local focus (e.g., one city, region, or state). Respondents that are selected by NASA for this Annex are expected to provide inputs into local transportation plans. Input elements could include the processes to support community-wide information exchanges, activities that accelerate early adoption of AAM applications, ensure public confidence in AAM safety, and facilitate community-wide learning towards operational AAM services. NASA expects to work with the partners and assembled teams through a series of approximately four individualized tabletop workshops to provide technical comments and insight on critical areas within their plan inputs. These could be in person or virtual meetings. The agreement also provides the respondent and their assembled team an opportunity to collaborate with NASA on multi-modal transportation planning, modeling and simulations of the AAM portion of a transportation system, public acceptance (including noise issues), community engagement, infrastructure planning, contingency planning for opportunities to demonstrate AAM operations in various scenarios (e.g., post-hurricane damage assessments), and the National Campaign. NASA intends to compile best practices, lessons learned and other non-competitive information collected from early adopter localities who choose to partner with NASA to support advancement and continuity across the entire UAM community. Additionally, NASA plans to utilize partner-developed plans to inform NASA research and development, National Campaign plans, and AAM Ecosystem Working Groups and NASA/FAA working group activities. The specific requirements and evaluation criteria that NASA will use to select U.S. partners for the AAM Community Planning and Integration Annex are listed below in Section 6 of the attached “ACO-3 Announcement AAM Research – 2021-02-24.pdf” document. 2.4. AAM Crashworthiness Research and Testing AAM vehicles under current development differ from conventional aircraft designs due to their utilization of new and novel features including the use of: composite materials as their primary structure; electric, alternative and hybrid propulsion systems; unique configuration(s) of the lifting devices; and modes of operation. There is no legacy data obtained from either testing or in-service accidents to address how these vehicles perform in an emergency condition such as a hard landing or crash. In addition to these design features, many of the certification standards in place for legacy aircraft are under renewed scrutiny to determine their applicability to these new AAM vehicle designs. This Announcement is inviting proposals from AAM vehicle companies that wish to collaborate for the generation, collection and dissemination of full-scale airframe crash test data for the purpose of advancing public and private vehicle safety efforts. The vehicle partner will provide one or more full-scale test articles that are representative of an AAM vehicle concept, and NASA will instrument and crash test the provided test articles at NASA Langley Research Center. NASA will leverage its decades of research experience with crash safety testing and analysis of conventional vertical take-off and landing vehicle structure to perform the crash testing. This breadth of knowledge and experience is currently being leveraged as part of the research portfolio to study the specific crashworthiness challenges of AAM vehicles. The data collected from crash testing as part of this collaboration will include information regarding acceleration levels in the vehicle, along with expected occupant injury (or lack thereof) through the use of conventional and advanced Anthropomorphic Test Devices (ATDs, a.k.a. crash test dummies), and information pertaining to post-test vehicle condition (major failure identification, cabin deformation characteristics and/or other structural interrogations). This collaboration will supplement NASA in-house research efforts to characterize loading cases for AAM vehicle crashworthiness. The collaboration is anticipated to also generate data necessary for consensus standards organizations and regulators to accurately evaluate the safety characteristics in the vehicles and thus build regulations requirements using updated load cases for certification and will result in the generation of public reports on crashworthiness results and lessons learned specific to AAM vehicles. The “AAM Crashworthiness Research and Testing Annex”, or “Crashworthiness Annex”, covers participation by U.S. AAM vehicle companies that have a realistic vehicle design that is currently under fabrication to work with NASA to perform crash safety testing of one or more full-scale test articles that represent their AAM vehicle concept. The crash safety testing will be performed at NASA Langley Research Center on the instrumented test article(s) with data provided to the vehicle company and also used by NASA to help inform the development of consensus standards for vehicle crashworthiness. The specific requirements and evaluation criteria that NASA will use to select U.S. vehicle developers for Crashworthiness Annex are listed below in Section 7 of the attached “ACO-3 Announcement AAM Research – 2021-02-24.pdf” document. 2.5. Communication, Navigational and Surveillance Flight Testing Reliable, fast and secure Communication, Navigation and Surveillance (CNS) technologies and systems will be a key enabler to AAM operations at the densities and complexities that are envisioned at the UML-4 level. Current CNS systems that are used in aviation applications today are yet to be proven for the unique characteristics of AAM operations, and new CNS technologies that are being proposed for AAM operations have yet to be demonstrated and proven for AAM applications. In order to address some of the unknowns with current and new CNS technologies that may support future AAM operations, NASA intends to leverage its exemplary history of flight test and evaluation of CNS technologies for aerospace applications to partner with CNS technology developers and providers to evaluate the performance and maturity their CNS technologies in AAM-like operational flight test scenarios. CNS technologies of interest to NASA include, but are not limited to, two-way air-to-ground data links, satellite services, positioning and timing services, vehicle-to-vehicle communication technologies, and airspace surveillance concepts that rely on the dissemination of sensor data. The data collected during these flight evaluations will help the partner understand the performance, capabilities and limitations of their system in AAM-like operations with a NASA-provided full-scale, fixed-wing, and piloted aircraft, and will help NASA and the AAM community to understand CNS requirements for AAM commercial operations. With this Announcement, NASA is inviting CNS developers and providers to propose their CNS technologies and systems to be tested and evaluated as part of the NASA-provided AAM-like flight campaign. The “Communication, Navigation, and Surveillance Flight Testing Annex”, or “CNS Annex”, covers participation by U.S. CNS technology providers to have their CNS systems flight tested and evaluated, and the attached Annex lists the specific responsibilities, schedule and milestones of the intended partnership. This annex will facilitate the necessary information exchange between NASA and its partners, facilitate the temporary transfer of CNS hardware to NASA to complete the flight evaluations, and provide the terms and conditions regarding the use of the collected data. The specific requirements and evaluation criteria that NASA will use to select U.S. entities for CNS flight testing and evaluation are listed below in Section 8 of the attached “ACO-3 Announcement AAM Research – 2021-02-24.pdf” document. 3. Partnership and Proposal Information 3.1. Proposal Instructions In order to participate in AAM activities with NASA as outlined in this Announcement, interested entities or “respondents” must submit a proposal to this Announcement against the specific requirements listed below for the particular partnership category that best represents their interest and ability to work collaboratively with NASA. The requirements include a limit on the number of pages that can be submitted with a proposal, where a page is defined as one side of a sheet, 8 ½” x 11”, with at least one-inch margins on all sides, singled spaced, using not smaller than 12-point type, with the exception of tables and figures, which may use 8-point type. Any pages over the specified maximum will not be evaluated. Title pages, section and appendix cover pages, tables of contents, tabs and acronym listings are excluded from the specified page counts. Changes to the model agreements are not anticipated, and if the respondent agrees to the terms of the particular Umbrella SAA and Annex that they submit against, then they can return the Agreement signed with their proposal. The AFCM Annex is the exception to this where NASA will provide respondent a form Umbrella SAA and AFCM Annex for signature which is prepared in response to the proposal if NASA chooses to select respondent’s AFCM proposal. If there is a particular reason the respondent is not able or willing to agree to specific requirements or terms of the Umbrella Agreement or Annex, the respondent may submit a request for partner-required modifications to the Umbrella Agreement or Annex with their proposal. Each partner-required modification will be assessed by NASA against technical goals, fairness, efficiency, and available resources, to determine if NASA is willing to accommodate the required modifications. If NASA is willing to consider the required modifications submitted by the partner, the proposal will be considered to be compliant and will be evaluated in accordance with Sections 4.3, 6.3, 7.3, and 8.3 of 4 of the attached “ACO-3 Announcement AAM Research – 2021-02-24.pdf” document. If NASA does not wish to consider the modifications, then the proposal will be considered unacceptable and respondent will not have the opportunity to participate in the AAM activities outlined in this Announcement. Otherwise, NASA will contact the respondent to discuss the required modifications as outlined in the evaluation criteria. Please note that NASA intends to treat all participants equitably, so changes to the model agreements are not anticipated. All proposal information shall be contained in the proposal; external references will not be considered/evaluated. NASA provides no funding for reimbursement of proposal development costs. Proposals submitted in response to this Announcement will not be returned. Respondents are encouraged to limit the amount of Proprietary Data (defined below) included in their proposal, and only include such information that is necessary to meet the proposal requirements listed in this Announcement. Respondents must clearly mark any Proprietary Data in their proposal. For purposes of this Announcement, “Proprietary Data” shall mean information set out in the proposal embodying trade secrets developed at private expense or commercial or financial information that is privileged or confidential, and that includes a clear restrictive notice, unless the information is (i) known or available from other sources without restriction, (ii) known, possessed, or developed independently, and without reference to such marked information in the proposal, (iii) made available by the owners to others without restriction, or (iv) required by law or court order to be disclosed. With respect to such Proprietary Data, NASA shall: a. Use, disclose, or reproduce such Proprietary Data only as necessary to evaluate the proposal; b. Safeguard such Proprietary Data from unauthorized use and disclosure; c. Allow access to such Proprietary Data only to its employees requiring access for purposes of evaluating the proposal; d. Except as otherwise indicated in c., preclude disclosure outside NASA; e. Notify its employees with access about their obligations under this Announcement and ensure their compliance; and f. Dispose of such Proprietary Data after evaluation of the proposal has concluded. Evaluated proposals selected by the Selecting Official in accordance with the terms of this Announcement will be formally selected to participate in the AAM research and demonstration activities. All respondents who submitted proposals to this Announcement will be notified of their selection status and provided feedback. 3.2 . Submission Instructions Proposals should be submitted via email to [email protected]. This email address will only accept individual emails less than 10MB, so plan submissions accordingly. All submissions must be received in the NASA email box by 2:00 PM Pacific Standard Time (PST) on April 2, 2021. Late submissions will not be accepted. NASA will send a receipt confirmation for each proposal received within one business day of receipt. If this receipt confirmation is not received, then send a follow-up email without any attachments to enquire if the proposal was received. NASA will work with respondent to ensure that their proposals are received and considered, as long as it is prior to the April 2, 2021 proposal due date. 3.3. Key Dates Release of Announcement: February 2021 Proposal Due Date: April 2, 2021, 2:00 PM PST 3.4. Eligibility Both U.S. and international vehicle entities that have an intent to participate in information exchange activities with NASA for early preparation for NC-2 flight activities are eligible to submit a proposal to this Announcement. All other partnership opportunities described in this Announcement are open only to U.S. companies, organizations and entities. For the purposes of this Announcement, a U.S. company is a commercial firm or business incorporated in the U.S. (or an unincorporated U.S. firm with its principal place of business in the U.S.) that is controlled by U.S. citizens or by another U.S. entity. NASA may require confirmation of this status in the review process. 3.5. Participant Requirements Performance of activities under this Announcement may require access to data that is subject to export control regulations. Any entity proposing shall comply with all U.S. export control laws including Export Administration Regulations (EAR) and International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). Respondents are responsible for ensuring that all employees who will work on this proposal and any resulting agreements are eligible under export control laws, EAR, and ITAR. Any employee who is not a U.S. citizen or a permanent resident may be restricted from participating in the AAM research and demonstration activities if technology is restricted under export control laws, ITAR, or EAR unless the prior approval of the Department of State or the Department of Commerce is obtained. Violations of export control limitations can result in criminal or civil penalties. Proposals must not include bilateral participation, collaboration, or coordination with China or any Chinese-owned company or entity by NASA unless such activities are otherwise specifically authorized by law. By submitting a proposal, proposers are certifying that the proposal does not include bilateral participation, collaboration, or coordination with China or any Chinese-owned company or entity by NASA. “China or Chinese-owned Company” means the People’s Republic of China, any company owned by the People’s Republic of China, or any company incorporated under the laws of the People’s Republic of China. By submission of its proposal, the respondent represents that the respondent is not China or a Chinese-owned company, and that the proposal does not anticipate or require NASA to participate, collaborate, or coordinate bilaterally with China or any Chinese-owned company. 4. National Campaign – 2 Information Exchange Annex Reference Attachment titled: ACO-3 Announcement AAM Research – 2021-02-24 5. Automated Flight and Contingency Management Partnership Reference Attachment titled: ACO-3 Announcement AAM Research – 2021-02-24 6. AAM Community Planning and Integration Annex Reference Attachment titled: ACO-3 Announcement AAM Research – 2021-02-24 7. AAM Crashworthiness Research and Testing Annex Reference Attachment titled: ACO-3 Announcement AAM Research – 2021-02-24 8. CNS Flight Testing Annex Reference Attachment titled: ACO-3 Announcement AAM Research – 2021-02-24 9. List of Attachments Attachment 1: AAM National Campaign Scenarios – NC-2 Attachment 2: Umbrella Space Act Agreement for U.S. Participants Attachment 3: Umbrella Space Act Agreement for International Participants Attachment 4: National Campaign – 2 Information Exchange Annex Attachment 5: Automated Flight and Contingency Management Annex (Sample only) Attachment 6: AAM Community Planning and Integration Annex Attachment 7: AAM Crashworthiness Research and Testing Annex Attachment 8: Communication, Navigation, and Surveillance Flight Testing Annex