Description

Hot off the press! The fourth and latest edition of the U-space Concept of Operations (ConOps) has just been published by the SESAR 3 JU’s CORUS-XUAM project, expanding the scope to urban air mobility (UAM).

The ConOps extends the previous edition from 2019 and looks into the future with the goal to serve as a reference manual for delivering U-space, Europe’s enabling framework for the safe and secure integration of uncrewed aerial systems, or drones, into the airspace.

Specifically, this latest edition of the ConOps:

• addresses urban air mobility needs, in particular processes at vertiports, airspace structure and flight rules, and eVTOL passenger-carrying operations;
• is aligned with EU U-space regulations (1);
• includes inputs coming from other SESAR research and innovation projects.

A preliminary version of the fourth edition of the ConOps, labelled 3.10, was released in July 2022 for comments, which were addressed in this consolidated final edition.

The ConOps aims to reach a consensus on what U-space means operationally. The document provides the terminology and a general model of the overall system of U-space, which consists of the seven services, matching what is captured in EU U-space regulations.