By Jim Banke
NASA Aeronautics
Research Mission Directorate

Timing is everything.

In delivering the punch line to a good joke, passing the football to a receiver in the end zone or launching a new crew to the International Space Station – knowing the exact moment to go is the key to success.

Air traffic controllers face that kind of scheduling challenge every day as they work to move thousands of passengers and tons of cargo efficiently and safely through every phase of an airplane’s journey from airport gate to gate.

Take departure, for example. Controllers must smartly direct aircraft from a terminal gate, along the taxiway, onto the runway and then into the sky, allowing the airliner to join smoothly with the busy air traffic lanes overhead.

To do this, controllers must determine as best they can the precise amount of time it will take for an airliner to get from its gate to a fixed spot in the sky, and therefore be able to predict when pilots should receive clearance to push away from the terminal.

Now a new computer software tool developed by NASA’s aeronautical innovators – the Precision Departure Release Capability, or PDRC – will soon help controllers better manage that part of the airplane’s trip.
NASA officially presented the prototype software by to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) during a ceremony at the FAA’s headquarters in Washington Tuesday, Aug. 6.