Spaceport Cornwall has commenced work on a joint project with the National Drone Hub to establish a testing environment for uncrewed aerial systems (UAS).
The National Drone Hub, operated by WholeShip in partnership with the Royal Navy, is the UK’s first Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) accredited drone test site, providing access to a 320-hectare site with four runways and over 8,000 square kilometres of segregated airspace off the Lizard Peninsula. This airspace already supports comprehensive testing and evaluation of drone technologies in a controlled environment.
The collaboration with Spaceport Cornwall – Cornwall Airport Newquay will now extend testing capabilities. The team is working to establish a Specific Operations Risk Assessment (SORA) – a safety framework required for complex drone operations – at Newquay.
Supported by funding from Cornwall Space Cluster, this project could provide access to segregated airspace off the north coast of Cornwall from Newquay to enable Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) drone test and evaluation. The scale of the airspace would enable operations of larger, high-speed UAS, including those travelling at supersonic speeds.
The two sites in Cornwall would create drone testing environments to develop and certify next-generation autonomous systems.
Earlier this year, the CAA published a new policy concept to support safe and efficient testing of UAS in the UK. The UAS Operations at Test Sites – Policy Concept sets out how the CAA can pre-assess test sites.
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Image: Spaceport Cornwall
