Although the SORA version passed by the JARUS plenary session in May has yet to be officially implemented by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), it is already worth taking a closer look at the upcoming changes to the "Specific Operational Risk Assessment" procedure for the individual risk assessment of UAS operating scenarios.
An important objective of the responsible Working Group Safety Risk Management (WG SRM) of the Joint Authorities for Rulemaking on Unmanned Systems was to contribute to simplified application procedures for UAS missions in the "Specific Category" through additional linguistic clarity and individual adjustments to details. The team, led by Joerg Dittrich, therefore worked intensively on explaining the semantic model for risk mitigation more comprehensively. This should ensure that applicants can more quickly understand the requirements for an approvable application respectively a safe drone operation in the specific category in accordance with SORA.
With SORA version 2.5, the SRM WG focused primarily on the ground risk assessment methodology. For example, the table used to differentiate between dense and sparse settlement was revised on the basis of numerical population density. In the event of insufficient data quality, it is now also possible to fall back on qualitative descriptions of population density. Furthermore, the impact of the airspace adjacent to the operating area on the required risk reduction actions has been significantly reduced. This means that in most cases a lower containment level is required.
Now that the work on SORA version 2.5 has been completed, the responsible working group at JARUS is already looking ahead to SORA 3.0, as all the areas that were deliberately left out of the update from 2.0 to 2.5 are now to be worked on in a similar way so that their implementation is also made easier. And the SRM WG still has a lot of detailed work to do here. Especially with regard to the entire complex of air risk.