The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is faced with the challenge of integrating newer and more frequent launch and re-entry vehicle (LRV) operations while minimizing effects on other National Airspace System (NAS) users and maintaining safety. Current LRV operations require the FAA to segregate large amounts of airspace with Aircraft Hazard Areas (AHAs) to maintain safety and account for unforeseen events such as vehicle breakup. This practice requires other NAS users to reroute and plan their operations around the AHAs. The FAA and The MITRE Corporation (MITRE) are working together in a variety of areas to more efficiently integrate the growing number of LRV operations while minimizing effects on all NAS users. A number of considerations have to be made when evaluating the safety of LRV operations such as the level of surveillance performance on the LRV and aircraft; how much time Air Traffic Controllers (ATC) have to respond to an unforeseen event; the size of AHAs, the location, orientation, and density of air traffic; and the procedures and methods ATC employs in these events. Each of these factors could support a rich amount of research and study, but analysis can be done to prioritize factors that contribute most to maintaining safety. Thus far, minimal research has been performed on the sensitivity of all of the factors listed above in an integrated and fast-time manner. MITRE is building a flexible, fast-time modeling and simulation capability that can quantify how different factors affect safety in the NAS during LRV operations. This capability can be used to examine the operational risks and safety for each LRV operation by varying a wide range of parameters such as surveillance performance, air traffic density, ATC response times, and other factors. This paper describes MITRE's modeling capability, and details preliminary assessments of several factors in a particular scenario to demonstrate the capability.
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