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A wide range of research activities are in progress at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center at any one point in time, ranging from validation of advanced aeronautical and control systems concepts and atmospheric flight testing of future space-access technology demonstrators to Earth science experiments. Most of these programs and projects are in keeping with the "Revolutionary Vehicles" element of NASA's Aeronautics Blueprint, an integrated strategy that addresses the challenges in aviation by developing technology solutions to create environmentally compatible aircraft with revolutionary capabilities for unprecedented levels of performance and safety.
Research Programs and Projects
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The Active Aeroelastic Wing (AAW) project is researching wing aeroelastic flexibility for improved maneuverability, weight reduction and extended range. The test aircraft is a modified F/A-18 Hornet.
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NASA's Airborne Science Program is administered from the NASA Dryden
Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif. The program supports
the sub-orbital flight requirements of NASA's Earth Science
Enterprise. Dryden maintains and operates two ER-2 high-altitude
aircraft and a DC-8 flying laboratory.
The scientific disciplines that employ these aircraft include
earth resources, astronomy, atmospheric chemistry, climatology,
oceanography, archeology, ecology, forestry, geography, geology,
hydrology, meteorology, volcanology and biology. The DC-8
and ER-2 are also important tools to develop sensors that
will fly aboard future Earth-observing satellites and validate
and calibrate the satellite sensors that currently orbit our
planet.
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NASA is using a McDonnell Douglas DC-8 aircraft as a flying
science laboratory. The platform aircraft, based at NASA's Dryden
Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif., collects data for many
experiments in support of scientific projects serving the world
scientific community. Included in this community are NASA, federal,
state, academic and foreign investigators.
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Research Update |
NASA is using two ER-2 Airborne Science aircraft as flying
laboratories. The aircraft, based at NASA's Dryden Flight Research
Center, Edwards, Calif., collect information about our surroundings,
including Earth resources, celestial observations, atmospheric
chemistry and dynamics, and oceanic processes. The aircraft also are
used for electronic sensor research and development, satellite
calibration, and satellite data validation.
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An Aircraft Cabin Turbulence Warning Experiment, jointly sponsored by NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center and the Federal Aviation Administration, was conducted at the Civil Aerospace Medical Institute at Oklahoma City from Oct. 1 through Oct. 3, 2002. This experiment provided critical information to improve in-flight safety for turbulence encounters, the largest cause of in-flight injuries.
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This project is exploring a concept that could power future solar-electric unmanned aircraft and spacecraft by precisely beaming laser light to the aircraft. The concept could allow solar aircraft to be flown at high latitudes during winter when days are short and nights are long, and could conceivably be used, in conjunction with orbiting satellites, to power aircraft and ground rovers on planetary explorations.
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Both of Dryden's workhorse B-52 aircraft, a B-model, tail number 008, and an H-model, tail number 025, support NASA's flight research programs. The B-model is scheduled to launch the X-43A hypersonic vehicle in Spring 2004, and the H-model is slated to launch the X-37 late in the year.
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ERAST stands for Environmental Research Aircraft and Sensor Technology. This program was started by NASA in 1994 to develop unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology and the miniaturization of science instruments.
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NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center has partnered with General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc., (GA-ASI) to demonstrate technologies that will expand the capabilities of remotely operated, uninhabited aircraft to perform high-altitude earth science missions. To accomplish the task, GA-ASI is developing an enlarged version of its Predator reconnaissance aircraft, the Predator B, including an extended-wingspan Altair version for NASA, to meet these requirements.
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The solar-powered Helios Prototype is being developed under NASA's Environmental Research Aircraft and Sensor Technology (ERAST) project as a technology demonstrator for future solar-electric unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) that can perform long-endurance, high-altitude environmental science, surveillance, and commercial telecommunications relay missions. With the successful development of a supplemental fuel cell-based energy system for night flight, the remotely operated Helios will be able to fly for weeks or months at a time.
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The F-15B Research Testbed provides NASA, industry, and universities with long-term capability for the efficient flight test of aerodynamic, instrumentation, propulsion, and other flight research experiments.The F-15B Research Testbed is a unique airborne resource, a virtual "flying wind tunnel," among it's many other capabilities.
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The Flight Research Research and Technology Base Program will pioneer the
identification, development, verification, transfer, and application of
high-payoff aeronautical technologies.
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The Intelligent Flight Control system flight research project is designed to evaluate self-learning neural network concepts into flight control software that can efficiently optimize aircraft performance in both normal and failure conditions, enabling a pilot to maintain control and safely land an aircraft that has suffered a major systems failure or combat damage. The IFCS testbed aircraft is a highly-modified NF-15B. Future IFCS tests will be flown on an Air Force C-17 test aircraft.
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The X-37 Approach and Landing Test Vehicle (ALTV) is an experimental autonomous vehicle designed to demonstrate advanced space flight technologies. Built by the Boeing Co. under a cooperative agreement with NASA, the X-37 ALTV is 27.5 feet long with a wingspan of 15 feet, and weighs approximately 7,000 pounds.
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The X-43 is a prototype, hypersonic aircraft that will validate design technology for airframe-integrated, "air-breathing" hypersonic engines. This type of engine installed in a vehicle traveling to space promises to reduce the cost to space by increasing payload capacity. This type of vehicle will carry less oxygen onboard for fuel ignition. Instead, the airframe acts as a "scoop" extracting oxygen from the atmosphere.
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The Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle (UCAV) System Demonstration Program is a joint DARPA/Air Force/Boeing effort to demonstrate the technical feasibility for a UCAV system to conduct various strike missions within the emerging global command and control architecture. Dryden is providing technical expertise and facilities for the X-45A team. The aircraft's first flight occurred on May 22, 2002.
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Research Facilities at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center provide its pilots, engineers, scientists and technicians a unique and highly specialized capability to conduct flight research programs unmatched anywhere in the world. These facilities incorporate advanced and innovative processes to meet our customers' evolving requirements on time, every time. These facilties include:
Thousands of technical reports and papers written by NASA Dryden engineers about various aspects of flight research projects conducted at the center over the past six decades are available either on-line on the Dryden Technical Reports Server, which is part of the NASA Technical Report Server, or in hard copy form from the NASA Center for Aerospace Information or the National Technical Information Service. The Dryden Technical Reports Server is a database of Abstracts, Citations and full text Technical Reports written by and for the scientific and technical community.
For more information, log onto http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/DTRS/index.html.
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