NASA and a clutch of startup and established companies are moving forward with plans to transform mobility in urban environments through the Urban Air Mobility Grand Challenge.

If its fully implemented, the new Urban Air Mobility system could enable air transit for things like package delivery, taxi services, expanded air medical services and cargo delivery to underserved or rural communities, the agency said in a statement.

The Grand Challenge series brings together companies developing new transportation or airspace management technologies, the Agency said.

With this step, were continuing to put the pieces together that we hope will soon make real the long-anticipated vision of smaller piloted and unpiloted vehicles providing a variety of services around cities and in rural areas, said Robert Pearce, NASAs associate administrator for aeronautics, in a statement.

The idea is to bring companies to collaborate and also give regulatory agencies a window into the technologies and how they may work in concert to bring air mobility to the masses in the coming years.

Our partnership with the FAA will be a key factor in the successful and safe outcomes for industry that we can expect from conducting these series of Grand Challenges during the coming years, Pearce said, in a statement.

Getting the agreements signed are the first step in a multi-stage process that will culminate in the challenges official competition in 2022. There are preliminary technological tests that will take place this year.

We consider this work as a risk reduction step toward Grand Challenge 1, said Starr Ginn, NASAs Grand Challenge lead. It is designed to allow U.S. developed aircraft and airspace management service providers to essentially try out their systems with real-world operations in simulated environments that we also will be flight testing to gain experience.

Partnerships for the challenge fall into three categories:

The Grand Challenge is managed through NASAs Advanced Air Mobility project, which was established in the agencys Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate to coordinate urban air mobility activities.

Companies participating in the challenge include:

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NASA moves forward with 17 companies as part of bid to transform urban aerial transportation - TechCrunch