In the coming years and decades, NASA wants to bring new and innovative aviation services to areas across the country, which will likely mean more helicopterstyle aircraft in the skies. NASA researchers recently completed a series of tests to help make that vision into a reality: simulating a facility where large volumes of vertical takeoff and landing aircraft can operate.

NASA’s Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) project works to help emerging aviation markets safely develop air transportation systems to move people and cargo. Its High Density Vertiplex (HDV) subproject seeks to develop the infrastructure needed to support those systems. Much of the country’s air infrastructure is dedicated to airplanes. But in the future vertiports will become increasingly important, especially in urban areas.