NASA SponsoredSafety Dashboard
Integrated Airspace & Airport Surface Safety
One safety picture, from the final approach to the gate — each flight followed through terminal airspace and across the airport surface, its margins measured against FAA separation rules, and every runway rated Nominal, Stressed or At Risk.
An aircraft on approach doesn't become a different problem when it touches down. Yet terminal airspace and the airport surface are usually monitored separately, by different tools against different measures. The Safety Dashboard brings them together. It follows each flight continuously from terminal airspace through landing, taxi and departure, and measures and monitors its margins against FAA separation rules at every stage. It was developed with NASA sponsorship.
It rebuilds every aircraft and ground vehicle from FAA SWIM data: SFDPS en-route and terminal positions joined to STDDS (ASDE-X) surface tracks, one track per aircraft. In the air, it watches the protected buffers around each aircraft, the vectoring and spacing on approach, and the margins between consecutive arrivals. On the ground, it times every departure, arrival, runway crossing and vehicle movement, and checks each pair of operations at the same instant. Both feed one rating per runway and airport: Nominal, Stressed or At Risk. The rating compares each hour with past hours that had the same configuration, weather and traffic, so a busy IFR hour is judged against other busy IFR hours.
Capabilities
Capabilities
Integrated picture
Terminal airspace and surface operations on one map, rated together. An approach-spacing problem and the runway crossing it squeezes are seen together.
Airspace margins
Detection of buffer encroachment, approach vectoring and spacing, and arrival-to-arrival separation, measured minute by minute so short-lived hazards aren't averaged out.
FAA separation rules, measured and monitored
Every departure, arrival, runway crossing and approach is checked against the separation it required, in the air and on the ground.
Context-aware ratings
Each hour is compared with past hours like it, not with a fixed threshold, and the same measures apply at every covered airport and metroplex.
Evidence replay
Every finding opens a replay from approach to rollout, showing the actual and required separation side by side.
Reports and incident recreation
Daily and weekly reports across airspace, runways and taxiways, plus reconstruction of past events with weather, NOTAMs and traffic-flow context.
Architecture
How it works
1 · Rebuild
Every aircraft and ground vehicle is rebuilt from FAA SWIM: SFDPS en-route and terminal positions joined to STDDS (ASDE-X) surface tracks, one track per aircraft, with METAR and NOTAMs alongside.
2 · Measure
In the air, buffers, vectoring, spacing and arrival-to-arrival margins; on the ground, every departure, arrival, crossing and vehicle movement, each pair of operations checked at the same instant.
3 · Rate
Each hour is compared with past hours of the same configuration, weather and traffic and rated Nominal, Stressed or At Risk per runway and airport; every finding opens a replay.
Technical profile
At a glance
- Coverage
- Terminal airspace and airport surface
- Data
- FAA SWIM (SFDPS, STDDS), METAR, NOTAMs
- Measures
- FAA separation rules, measured and monitored
- Ratings
- Nominal / Stressed / At Risk, for each runway and airport
- Outputs
- Live map, evidence replay, daily and weekly reports, incident recreation
- Sponsorship
- NASA
- Platform
- Helios — Cignus’s AWS-native aviation data and AI platform
- Access
- Role-based, enforced per request at the Helios API layer — not inside the application
FAQ
Common questions
What does a rating mean?
Each hour is compared with past hours that had the same runway configuration, weather and traffic. Nominal means its margins sat where comparable hours sit; Stressed means they were tighter than usual for an hour like it; At Risk means separation was encroached in a way comparable hours did not show.
Can coverage be extended to another airport?
Yes. Coverage comes from FAA SWIM data, not local equipment, so adding an airport is a configuration and validation task. Contact us to discuss it.
How is it different from SafeFlight?
The Safety Dashboard measures separation as it happens and replays what happened; SafeFlight forecasts margins up to four hours ahead. They use the same margin definitions.
How is access controlled?
By role, at the API layer. Every request to Helios passes through interceptors that check the caller’s role and scope before any data is returned, so the same rules apply whether the request comes from the application, an API client, or an integration. Nothing is governed inside the application itself.
See Safety Dashboard in action
We will walk through it on data from your airport or airspace and discuss how it fits your operation.