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Armstrong Flight Research Center
The NASA Neil A. Armstrong Flight Research Center (AFRC) is an aeronautical research center operated by NASA. Its primary campus is located inside Edwards Air Force Base in California and is considered NASA's premier site for aeronautical research. AFRC operates some of the most advanced aircraft in the world and is known for many aviation firsts, including supporting the first crewed airplane to exceed the speed of sound in level flight (Bell X-1), highest speed by a crewed, powered aircraft (North American X-15), the first pure digital fly-by-wire aircraft (F-8 DFBW), and many others. AFRC operated a second site next to Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, known as Building 703, once the former Rockwell International/North American Aviation production facility. There, AFRC housed and operated several of NASA's Science Mission Directorate aircraft including SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy), a DC-8 Flying Laboratory, a Gulfstream C-20A UAVSAR and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States's civil list of government space agencies, space program, aeronautics research and outer space, space research. National Aeronautics and Space Act, Established in 1958, it succeeded the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) to give the American space development effort a distinct civilian orientation, emphasizing peaceful applications in space science. It has since led most of America's space exploration programs, including Project Mercury, Project Gemini, the 1968–1972 Apollo program missions, the Skylab space station, and the Space Shuttle. Currently, NASA supports the International Space Station (ISS) along with the Commercial Crew Program and oversees the development of the Orion (spacecraft), Orion spacecraft and the Sp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neil Armstrong
Neil Alden Armstrong (August 5, 1930 – August 25, 2012) was an American astronaut and aerospace engineering, aeronautical engineer who, in 1969, became the Apollo 11#Lunar surface operations, first person to walk on the Moon. He was also a Naval aviator (United States), naval aviator, test pilot, and university professor. Armstrong was born and raised near Wapakoneta, Ohio. He entered Purdue University, studying aeronautical engineering, with the U.S. Navy paying his tuition under the Holloway Plan. He became a midshipman in 1949 and a Naval aviator (United States), naval aviator the following year. He saw action in the Korean War, flying the Grumman F9F Panther from the aircraft carrier . After the war, he completed his bachelor's degree at Purdue and became a test pilot at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) Armstrong Flight Research Center, High-Speed Flight Station at Edwards Air Force Base in California. He was the project pilot on Century Serie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
TGALS
Towed glider air-launch system (abbv. TGALS) is a NASA-designed two-stage air-launched reusable launch system currently in development at NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center. The system uses a glider, tow plane, and rocket and is designed to carry small satellites to orbit. Both the glider and tow plane are reusable. The system, compared to other designs such as Swiss Space Systems' SOAR spaceplane and Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo vehicle, is launched from a glider. This design emulates an air-launched multistage rocket with two recoverable stages: the tow plane and the glider itself. Design The system comprises three large components: a tow plane, a glider, and a rocket. The tow plane, a conventional small aircraft, carries the glider up to about before releasing the towline and flying back. The glider, carrying its own hybrid or solid rocket motor, will ignite its engine to glide higher than the tow plane's maximum altitude. Following burnout of its rocket, the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rogers Dry Lake
Rogers Dry Lake is an endorheic desert salt pan in the Mojave Desert of Kern County, California. The lake derives its name from the Anglicization from the Spanish name, Rodriguez Dry Lake. It is the central part of Edwards Air Force Base as its hard surface provides a natural extension to the paved runways. It was formerly known as Muroc Dry Lake. Geology Rogers Dry Lake is located in the Antelope Valley, about drive north of Los Angeles. It covers an area of about at the low point of the valley, forming a rough figure eight. It is the bed of a lake that formed roughly 2.5 million years ago, in the Pleistocene. It is long and wide at its greatest dimensions. The bed of the lake is unusually hard, capable of withstanding as much as 250 psi without cracking. This is sufficient to allow even the heaviest aircraft to land safely. During the extremely brief rainy season, standing water may be on the lakebed, pooling near the location of the region's lowest elevation (2,300 f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pegasus Rocket
Pegasus is an Air launch to orbit, air-launched launch vehicle, multistage rocket developed by Orbital Sciences Corporation (OSC) and later built and launched by Northrop Grumman. Pegasus is the world's first privately developed orbital launch vehicle. Capable of carrying small payloads of up to into low Earth orbit, Pegasus first flew in 1990 and remained active . The vehicle consists of three Solid rocket, solid propellant Multistage rocket, stages and an optional Monopropellant rocket, monopropellant fourth stage. Pegasus is released from its carrier aircraft at approximately using a first stage wing and a tail to provide lift and altitude control while in the atmosphere. The first stage does not have a Thrust vectoring, thrust vector control (TVC) system. History Pegasus was designed by a team led by Antonio Elias. The Pegasus's three Orion solid motors were developed by Hercules Aerospace (later Alliant Techsystems) specifically for the Pegasus launcher but using adv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
X-43A
The NASA X-43 was an experimental unmanned hypersonic aircraft with multiple planned scale variations meant to test various aspects of hypersonic flight. It was part of the X-plane series and specifically of NASA's Hyper-X program developed in the late 1990s. It set several airspeed records for jet aircraft. The X-43 is the fastest jet-powered aircraft on record at approximately Mach 9.6.Thompson, Elvia, Keith Henry and Leslie Williams"Faster Than a Speeding Bullet: Guinness Recognizes NASA Scramjet." ''NASA.'' Retrieved: August 1, 2011. A winged booster rocket with the X-43 placed on top, called a "stack", was drop launched from a Boeing B-52 Stratofortress. After the booster rocket (a modified first stage of the Pegasus rocket) brought the stack to the target speed and altitude, it was discarded, and the X-43 flew free using its own engine, a scramjet. The first plane in the series, the X-43A, was a single-use vehicle, of which three were built. The first X-43A was de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hypersonic
In aerodynamics, a hypersonic speed is one that exceeds five times the speed of sound, often stated as starting at speeds of Mach 5 and above. The precise Mach number at which a craft can be said to be flying at hypersonic speed varies, since individual physical changes in the airflow (like molecular dissociation and ionization) occur at different speeds; these effects collectively become important around Mach 5–10. The hypersonic regime can also be alternatively defined as speeds where specific heat capacity changes with the temperature of the flow as kinetic energy of the moving object is converted into heat. Characteristics of flow While the definition of hypersonic flow can be quite vague and is generally debatable (especially because of the absence of discontinuity between supersonic and hypersonic flows), a hypersonic flow may be characterized by certain physical phenomena that can no longer be analytically discounted as in supersonic flow. The peculiarities in hyperso ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Supersonic
Supersonic speed is the speed of an object that exceeds the speed of sound (Mach 1). For objects traveling in dry air of a temperature of 20 °C (68 °F) at sea level, this speed is approximately . Speeds greater than five times the speed of sound (Mach 5) are often referred to as hypersonic. Flights during which only some parts of the air surrounding an object, such as the ends of rotor blades, reach supersonic speeds are called transonic. This occurs typically somewhere between Mach 0.8 and Mach 1.2. Sounds are traveling vibrations in the form of pressure waves in an elastic medium. Objects move at supersonic speed when the objects move faster than the speed at which sound propagates through the medium. In gases, sound travels longitudinally at different speeds, mostly depending on the molecular mass and temperature of the gas, and pressure has little effect. Since air temperature and composition varies significantly with altitude, the speed of s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Drop Test
A drop test is a method of testing the in-flight characteristics of prototype or experimental aircraft, experimental aircraft and spacecraft by raising the test vehicle to a specific altitude and then releasing it. Test flights involving powered aircraft, particularly rocket-powered aircraft, may be referred to as drop launches due to the Rocket launch, launch of the aircraft's rockets after release from its carrier aircraft. In the case of unpowered aircraft, the test vehicle free fall, falls or glider aircraft, glides after its release in an unpowered flight, unpowered descent to a landing site. Drop tests may be used to verify the aerodynamic, aerodynamic performance and Flight dynamics (fixed wing aircraft), flight dynamics of the test vehicle, to test its landing systems, or to evaluate survivability of a planned or crash landing. This allows the vehicle's designers to validate Computational fluid dynamics, computer flight models, wind tunnel testing, or other theoretical ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Balls 8
''Balls 8'' is a NASA Boeing NB-52B mothership which was retired in 2004 after almost 50 years of flying service with NASA. The aircraft is famous for dropping the X-15 aerospace research vehicle on 106 of the 199 X-15 program flights. Introduction According to certain assertions, the Boeing NB-52B Stratofortress, Air Force 52-0008, is the aircraft that has witnessed and taken part in the most historical aeronautical research events. It has been a mainstay at Edwards Air Force Base for 45 years. The goal of launching the North American X-15 hypersonic research aircraft project in 1958 took the NB-52B and its sister ship, the NB-52A, 52-0003. The NB-52B served as a launch platform for numerous programs until its final mission on November 16, 2004, whereas the NB-52A was retired in October 1969. Throughout its very difficult mission, the NB-52B was a flying launch pad. While flying nine miles above the ground, it had to provide the rocket planes it carried with the propel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
