NASA Langley and UNOS will collaborate under a new Space Act Agreement announced during a ceremony Tuesday at UNOS' headquarters in Richmond, Va. The partnership brings together NASA's expertise in aviation research and UNOS' role at the center of the U.S. transplant network, which manages parts of the national organ donation and transplant system under contract with the federal government and has long supported innovation. While organs are routinely transported between cities by aircraft, ground logistics can introduce time-sensitive challenges, especially in congested or hard-to-reach areas. Through this agreement, NASA will apply its aeronautics expertise and flight research capabilities to evaluate whether drones can help reduce those delays, improve delivery timelines, potentially improving medical outcomes. The collaboration focuses on identifying key challenges in organ transportation and determining how NASA-developed tools such as advanced modeling, flight planning, sensing technologies, and safety systems can help, allowing UNOS and NASA to design research that meets medical field standards.
The work also includes evaluating how drones perform when carrying sensitive biological materials in realistic environments. The first test will be conducted using NASA Langley's City Environment Range Testing for Autonomous Integrated Navigation (CERTAIN), which provides a unique capability to safely fly drones in real-world conditions beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) without the need for ground-based spotters. This capability enables researchers to explore longer-distance and more complex delivery scenarios that better reflect the time-sensitive nature of organ transport. After the initial flight evaluations, an animal test organ will be assessed to determine whether it remains viable for transplant, including assessing factors such as temperature stability and potential tissue damage caused by a lack of blood flow.
For NASA, the agreement demonstrates how technologies developed for aviation and space can directly benefit people on Earth. For UNOS, the partnership reflects its commitment to exploring innovative solutions to strengthen the transplant system.