The consortium governs itself through agreed policies. Here are the two most important ones for newcomers, summarized, with links to the official text.
When two flights would conflict, which one yields? The consortium adopted two priority levels so that time-critical, life-safety missions aren't blocked by routine commercial flights.
This came out of a task force with the FAA, NASA, and industry. They recommended starting simple (two levels) and collecting data to validate how prioritization affects the airspace before adding complexity.
Reserved for missions where immediate response is essential for human safety:
All routine operations that don't meet the life-dependent bar:
An operator can't just self-declare. To use high priority, you:
No standard document fits? You can propose an alternative artifact with a rationale for the Operations Committee to review. Once your ticket is accepted, you may use high priority for all applicable missions.
Read the full prioritization policy →The Discovery & Synchronization Service (DSS) is the shared backbone that lets providers find and sync with each other's operations. This policy keeps it robust and makes clear who owns what.
Give providers and regulators predictability around the DSS pool, while allowing the flexibility to use other instances to keep the network robust.
Every DSS instance is tied to a provider who keeps technical and governance responsibility for its performance.
Pool performance is watched continuously, with governance and technical requirements adjusted to address safety or performance issues.
Any affected stakeholder can propose a change through the Issue Resolution process in the governance agreement (Annex C, Section 7(h)), including new priority levels or changes to who qualifies. That's the consortium's commitment to evolving with real operational learnings.