Further Reading Get ready for Optimus Prime shipping: FAA approves Amazon drone experiments

NASA is now partnering with Verizon Wireless and more than 100 other technology firms, including Google and Airware , to research what could eventually become an automated drone air traffic control system.

On Thursday, The Guardian cited documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act to report that Verizon is specifically building some sort of system to examine whether cell towers "could support communications and surveillance of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) at low altitudes." The system, known formally as the Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM), is scheduled to be presented in its finalized form to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) by 2019. The research is still in its early stages.

"That’s when we turn it over to FAA," Paul McKim, a policy advisor at NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, told Ars. "Will the FAA accept it? That’s yet to be seen. We’re trying to do proof of concept that this will work, so that everybody who is flying in that area can see and be seen."

Kevin King, a Verizon spokesman, denied The Guardian’s report that Verizon is required to complete a "concept for using cell coverage for data, navigation, surveillance and tracking of drones by 2017" with a finalized version by 2019.

"It’s the early days in all of this stuff and experimental," King told Ars. "Our agreement with NASA is a non-reimbursable agreement—no money has changed hands. The idea that we’re going to have something that’s going to be ready by 2019, it’s not accurate. The agreement that we signed expires in 2019. There’s no expectation of a particular deliverable."

McKim acknowledged that the word "surveillance" has sinister connotations, and he said it really was supposed to mean "monitoring."

McKim explained that The Guardian may have been confused by the fact that Verizon is listed as being a partner in an "Active Space Agreement" with NASA, with an estimated dollar value of $500,000 attached. That amount, he said, is actually an in-kind estimation of the labor that NASA is providing.