NASA

NASA announced on Monday that the aircraft to be produced through its Sustainable Flight Demonstrator project will be the agency’s next X-Plane. Designated the X-66A, the modified MD-90 will feature “long, thin wings with engines mounted underneath and a set of aerodynamic trusses for support.” Designed to “inform a potential new generation of more sustainable […]

NASA has awarded first place in its annual Gateways to Blue Skies aeronautics competition to a team representing Boston University. The team, which included Max Pounanov, Michael Osuji, Odin Francis and Patrick Olah, took the prize with their project exploring aluminum powder combustion. Now in its second year, Gateways to Blue Skies is sponsored by […]

An F/A-18D slated to join the chase aircraft fleet at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center has gotten a new paint scheme and is nearing approval to fly. Designated NASA 862, the aircraft will be used to chase the X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology (QueSST) demonstrator, which is expected to fly for the first time later this […]

Nearly two years after beginning its mission, NASA’s Mars helicopter, Ingenuity, successfully completed its 50th flight with a 145.7-second hop on April 13. The rotorcraft flew for the first time on April 19, 2021, marking the first powered, controlled flight of an aircraft on another planet. Originally expected to survive for just five flights, Ingenuity […]

NASA has announced that the final installation of the tail assembly on its X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology (QueSST) research aircraft is complete. The work took place at Lockheed Martin Skunk Works in Palmdale, California, where the aircraft returned a year ago following a series of tests in Fort Worth, Texas. The X-59 is expected to […]

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson has sworn in Makenzie Lystrup as the new director of the Goddard Space Flight Center. She succeeds acting center director Dave Mitchell, who has held the position since January 2023 and will be returning to his previous role as chief program management officer at NASA headquarters. NASA noted that Goddard is […]

NASA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) have released the names of the astronauts selected to crew the Artemis II mission to fly by the Moon. The team will include mission commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and mission specialist Christina Hammock Koch from NASA and mission specialist Jeremy Hansen from CSA. The first crewed […]

NASA has awarded a total of $50 million to 14 organizations for the development of manufacturing processes and advanced composite materials for aircraft structures. Part of the agency’s Hi-Rate Composite Aircraft Manufacturing (HiCAM) project, funded work will look to “reduce the cost and increase the production rate of composite structures made in the U.S.” It […]

NASA has chosen teams led by four universities to participate in the agency’s University Leadership Initiative, researching “key challenges facing the future of air travel.” This year’s participants include teams headed by New Mexico State University, Boston University, the University of Notre Dame and Tennessee Technological University. The group is the sixth to participate in the […]

Citing a ground systems issue, NASA and SpaceX scrubbed Monday’s planned launch of the Crew-6 mission to the International Space Station (ISS). According to NASA, the decision was made in order to allow an investigation into “an issue preventing data from confirming a full load of the ignition source for the Falcon 9 first stage […]