How New FAA Program Plans to Tackle Increased Drone Integration

Phase is a follow-on to a previous effort that ended in 2025 but identified more challenges.

Jack Daleo

Friday, August 28, 2026 at 01:00 PM ET

Verified

Edited By:

Travis Tingle

Phase 2 of the FAA’s BEYOND program will tackle challenges raised during the initiative’s first phase, which ended in 2025. [Credit: iStock]

Key Takeaways:

The FAA is launching BEYOND Phase 2 to significantly expand the integration of small uncrewed aircraft systems (drones), focusing on safely increasing Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) operations.
This phase will select eight new state, local, tribal, or territorial government participants and address complex operational challenges such as on-airport activities, controlled airspace, and cross-border drone flights.
BEYOND Phase 2 aims to improve upon previous efforts by modifying performance metrics and complements the proposed Part 108 rule, which seeks to establish firm regulations for scalable BVLOS operations.

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The FAA is launching a new program that could see small uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS), or drones, integrated at greater scale.

The agency Thursday announced it will select eight new state, local, tribal or territorial government participants to launch the second phase of its BEYOND program, which aims to safely increase drone operations in the National Airspace System (NAS). Phase 1 began in 2020 and ended last year.