What & Why
CORUS five will produce the fifth version of the U-space ConOps. The updates are needed to catch up with recent progress. The fifth edition will align with regulatory and standardisation developments, the strategic direction of research, and address some open questions. The current implementations of U-space are generating performance and interoperability requirements. UAS Traffic Management is growing around the world – good (and best) practice is emerging. SESAR and other research projects are developing U-space improvements. The European Commission has recently published “U-space 2.0” and SESAR is revising their Air Traffic Management Master Plan. Open questions remain, primarily about how to integrate UAS and manned aircraft in the same airspace.
CORUS five will update the ConOps considering two ranges of time. For the shorter term, the ConOps will describe a more advanced U-space enabling more flights to operate safely and efficiently, compared to the current regulations and implementations. CORUS five will draw on current research projects and will aim to fill the gaps to produce a detailed ConOps which can inform the next regulatory and standardisation activities. CORUS five will look slightly further ahead to study the problem of safely mixing manned and unmanned in the same airspace. This part of the ConOps will inform the next waves of research
How & When
CORUS five is developing an outline of the ConOps right now and will present this to the stakeholders at a workshop in January 2025. The outline will establish what the ConOps should cover, and what the priorities are. Over the 18 months that follow the CORUS five team will develop the ConOps, checking with the stakeholder community at two moments in the process. In the summer of 2025 (date to be confirmed, probably September) a first version will be presented at a workshop. Towards the end of 2025 a second version will be released for comment and a workshop will be held in January 2026 to discuss the ConOps and the comments. Edition 5 of the ConOps will be released in summer 2026.
If you are interested in flying UAS or regulating or building a business related to UAS flight, then you are a stakeholder and might want to tell us what you think. You can add your name to our stakeholder community.
