保护地球，探索宇宙，发现文明
Our Shuttle Carrier Aircraft ferries the Space Shuttle Endeavour over the Johnson Space Center in Houston in this Sept. 20, 2012, image. Endeavour’s end destination was the California Science Center, where it sits on display. The shuttle Endeavour brought the first parts of the International Space Station to space and completed 25 missions. On its final flig...
T-38 planes are a fixture of astronaut training, assisting pilots and mission specialists to think quickly in changing situations. Here, our T-38s fly in formation above the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket on Launch Pad 39B. The SLS and Orion spacecraft for the Artemis I mission will launch no earlier than Aug. 29, 2022. Astronaut Andrew Morgan posted this ...
The supersonic X-1E research aircraft was the last of NASA’s experimental X-1 series of aircraft. From 1955-1958, it made 26 flights and one captive flight (attached to a carrier aircraft). Research flights took place over what is now NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. In this photo from November 2021, the X-1E looks toward...
Before NASA’s quiet supersonic X-59 aircraft takes to the skies, plenty of testing happens to ensure a safe first flight. One part of this safety check is to analyze data collected for the X-59’s flight control system through low-speed wind tunnel tests. The X-59 is central to NASA’s Quesst mission to expand supersonic flight and provide regulators with data...
An Alta-X drone operated by NASA researchers flies over NASA Langley’s City Environment Range Testing for Autonomous Integrated Navigation (CERTAIN) as part of the Advanced Air Mobility project’s High Density Vertiplex (HDV) testing in April 2022. HDV is developing the necessary systems to enable urban drone flights that travel beyond visual sight. Lea...
Evoking the experimental nature of flight testing and the spirit of aeronautical exploration, Quesst is what NASA is calling its mission to enable supersonic air travel over land. This new moniker – complete with an extra “s” to represent “supersonic” – draws its inspiration from NASA’s long legacy of supersonic flight research. Quesst, which rep...
A top view shows the wing loading test configuration of a F/A-18E from the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) in Patuxent River, Maryland. While the aircraft was in NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center Flight Loads Laboratory in Edwards, California, it underwent the center’s biggest load calibrations tests. That testing was needed before the aircraft coul...
This colorized schlieren image is of a small-scale model of NASA’s X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology (QueSST) airplane taken inside NASA Glenn Research Center’s 8- by- 6-foot Supersonic Wind Tunnel during a recent boom test. The multiple-week campaign produced data sets and shockwave visuals that engineers from the agency’s Commercial Supersonic Technology pr...
Ingenuity, the helicopter that arrived on the Red Planet on the Mars Perseverance rover, has made nine flights on Mars. Ingenuity’s historic achievement is the first powered helicopter flight on a terrestrial body other than Earth. According to Håvard F. Grip, Ingenuity Chief Pilot, and Ken Williford, Perseverance Deputy Project Scientist, Flight 9, wh...
In a series of flights between June 1-6, 2021, Stratodynamics Inc. launched its HiDRON stratospheric glider from a high-altitude balloon at Spaceport America in New Mexico. HiDRON carried technology supported by NASA’s Flight Opportunities program for the first time. The uncrewed HiDRON stratospheric glider from Stratodynamics is designed to release from a s...