Contact: Jim Laird

STARKVILLE, Miss.--Mississippi’s flagship research university will host a public meeting next month featuring regulators, scientists and industry representatives who are working together to integrate unmanned aircraft safely into the nation’s airspace.

Open to all, the two-hour, two-part ASSURE Center of Excellence-hosted event will take place Sept. 15 at Mississippi State, and include a discussion on opportunities to partner with the center as well as remarks by the FAA’s Southern Region Administrator Dennis Roberts.

Beginning at 11 a.m. at the Bryan Athletic Administration Building on the MSU campus, participants will discuss the agency’s new national Center of Excellence for Unmanned Aircraft Systems and its role in developing rules regulating commercial unmanned aerial systems (UAS).

After an extensive competitive review process, the FAA in May selected the Mississippi State-led Alliance for System Safety of UAS through Research Excellence to operate the new center. (For more, see ASSUREuas.org.)

According to ASSURE’s executive director at MSU, the new center will provide the agency and industry with research to maximize the potential of commercial unmanned systems with minimal changes to the current system regulating manned aircraft.

“All of our ASSURE partners know unmanned systems and the FAA,” said USAF Maj. Gen. (Ret.) James Poss.

“The ASSURE team is uniquely positioned to take advanced research and turn it into FAA rules that work for the agency and industry,” he said.

The center of excellence meeting will continue from noon to 1 p.m., and will include a question-and-answer period. Both sessions will feature live unmanned vehicle demonstrations.

“We want to help the UAS market achieve its multi-billion dollar potential, and the best way to do that is to provide accurate information and relevant research to all of our U.S. and international stakeholders,” he said.

The September public meeting is a very important part of that process, Poss said.

Poss encourages members of the local community, media, and students, faculty and staff to attend either session or to stay for both.

For additional information about the meeting, please contact Kelly Collier at kcollier@hpc.msstate.edu or 228-688-3403.

Direct media inquiries to Harriet Laird at hlaird@opa.msstate.edu or 662-325-7460.

MSU is Mississippi’s flagship research university, available online at www.msstate.edu.