The National Aeronautics and Space Administration – NASA – is trialing blockchain technology in an effort to safeguard the privacy and security of aircraft flight data.

In a research paper, Ronald Reisman – an aero-computer engineer – says that the blockchain networks and smart contracts are capable of tackling some unsolved issues related to security, authentication, and privacy.

In 2019, US will be mandating the use Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B), which will make aircraft’s identity, position, and information publicly available.

Reisman describes how a prototype –  the Aviation Blockchain Infrastructure (ABI) – based on Hyperledger Fabric and smart contracts allowing for the control over what data is shared publicly or privately with authorized entities.

““Controlling members define one or more channels to isolate peers into subnets and create private ledgers. Each channel’s ledger is only accessible to its member peer nodes. The channel’s organizations (entities) must approve each peer’s membership to the channel. Client requests are routed to a specified channel to run a smart contract that is deployed on that channel. The results are endorsed and verified, and then updated in that channel’s ledger,” the paper reads.

The channels would then be used for completing confidential transactions, meaning that, for example, aircraft state information such as altitude, longitude, and latitude could be kept secure via a private channel.

NASA also was in the spotlight last year when it sponsored a professor at University of Akron $330,000 to boost research into how an Ethereum-based blockchain network could automatically detect floating debris in space.