Wisk, NASA Partner On Autonomous Aircraft Integration

Urban air mobility (UAM) company Wisk has announced that it is partnering with NASA to explore the “safe integration of autonomous aircraft systems into Urban Air Mobility applications at a national level.” According to the company, its work will initially focus on safety scenarios related to autonomous flight and contingency management including collision avoidance and flight path management. The partnership is part of NASA’s Advanced Air Mobility National Campaign.

“Wisk brings a tremendous amount of experience in eVTOL vehicle development, automation technologies, and flight test, and combines it with a safety-first mindset towards advancing autonomous flight,” said NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate associate administrator Robert Pearce. “NASA believes our partnership with Wisk will help accelerate the realization of exciting new Advanced Air Mobility missions.”

Wisk is developing the Cora autonomous, all-electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) air taxi. The company, which has facilities in California’s San Francisco Bay area and New Zealand, reports that it has conducted more than 1400 eVTOL test flights since 2010. As previously reported by AVweb, Wisk signed an agreement with the New Zealand government last February to establish a passenger transport trial in Canterbury.