Interim study findings from R&D of long term future communications candidates for the National Airspace System (NAS)

A study is being conducted to identify a number of long term candidates for meeting future NAS ATM data comm needs - 50 year time horizon. List of Potential Comm Candidates has been identified - Initial evaluations of the candidates have been completed - Additional evaluations are being worked. Interim results are available - One of the next steps is to prioritize candidates. We have intentionally not yet prioritized the candidates until all the initial evaluations are completed. Before any candidate would seriously be considered for NAS operations, further analysis, stakeholder vetting, additional cost/benefits, etc. is needed.