Category Archives: Applications & Testing & Experience

Successful First Flight for NASA’S X-56A Multi-Utility Technology Testbed

MUTTResearchers at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center, Edwards, California, successfully conducted the agency’s first flight of the X-56A Multi-Utility Technology Testbed (MUTT) on April 9. The 20-minute flight marked the beginning of a research effort designed to yield significant advances in aeroservoelastic technology using a low-cost, modular, remotely piloted aerial vehicle.

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UAV to Climb to 90,000 ft Without an Engine

perlan10Applying aerospace technology and atmospheric research to fly a glider higher than any other manned aircraft has ever flown. In 2015/16 Perlan Mission II intends to set new altitude records by flying a purpose-built pressurised high-altitude glider (the Perlan 2) higher than any other manned wing borne aircraft has ever flown in sustained flight using stratospheric mountain waves and the polar vortex and in so doing harvest invaluable data about earth’s atmosphere and its ozone layer.

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