Browse Archive

  • fiber optic wing shape sensor team

    Measuring up to the Gold Standard

    The Ikhana uninhabited aircraft system is flying research missions with an advanced sensing technology installed on its wings that measures and displays the shape of the aircraft's wings in flight.

  • The SOFIA flies a second checkout flight from Waco, Texas.

    The SOFIA: Key Events May Lead to First Science Data in About Two Years

    The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, or SOFIA made its debut at Dryden June 27 following three successful checkout flights in Waco, Texas

  • Erik Lindbergh, grandson of Charles Lindbergh, unveils a plaque rededicating NASA's SOFIA aircraft as

    Lindbergh Legacy: NASA 747SP Honors Aviator's Feat

    Excitement is a cure for apathy and that's what Erik Lindbergh, grandson of famed aviator Charles Lindbergh, believes NASA's new airborne observatory will bring to the world.

  • photo of milky way galaxy

    Science of the SOFIA

    The only thing more impressive than an airborne observatory that carries a 17-metric-ton telescope is the potential for equally weighty new breakthroughs in astronomy.

  • Dietmar Lilienthal (foreground, gesturing), German program manager for the SOFIA, points out a feature of the NASA 747SP to a group of German dignitaries.

    Science Alliance

    For as long as humans have stared up into the night sky, curiosity about the heavens has drawn their gaze. It is this fundamental need to know the unknown - and a desire for the ever-larger telescopes needed to find it - that has led Americans and Germans to forge a partnership aimed at unlocking the mysteries of the heavens.

  • A NASA 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft departs with space shuttle Atlantis securely on top for its return to Kennedy Space Center, Fla.

    A Tale of Two Birds: Chief Pilot Compares the Mighty NASA 747s

    Gordon Fullerton knows a thing or three about specially modified 747 aircraft.

  • sofia in flight

    The SOFIA Airborne Laboratory

    The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, or SOFIA made its first checkout flight recently.

  • Altair in flight

    Earth Science: Dryden Capabilities Contribute to Demonstration Missions

    The Western States Unmanned Aircraft Systems Fire Mission is scheduled to begin Aug. 14.

  • Ian Brooks, a Cranfield Aerospace employee, works on the Boeing Phantom Works X-48B Blended Wing Body aircraft.

    BWB Arrives at Dryden

    Flying wing on steroids could mark the shape of things to come in aviation

  • A carbon-carbon X-37 flaperon qualification unit cools from a maximum test temperature of more than 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit.

    Hot Structures:

    Dryden's Flight Loads Laboratory is one of the only government facilities available for researching mechanical and thermal loads simultaneously on everything from large structures or systems up to full-sized aircraft.

  • Tony Frackowiak, standing, left, and Tyler Beiter set up the mothership and its underbelly passenger, the Sandia Dart research vehicle

    DART: Flight Research Hits the Mark

    Dryden technicians integrated the Sandia Darts onto the center's utility vehicle aircraft and after several modifications, air launched the Darts from about 3,000 feet in an attempt to characterize the Darts' aerodynamics.

  • Dryden pilot Scott Crossfield prepares for X-15 flight.

    A test pilot's final dawn
    Aeronautics was Scott Crossfield's passion

    Distinguished research pilot and engineer Albert S. "Scott" Crossfield died April 19 when his small plane crashed near Ranger, Ga., during a flight from Prattville, Ala., to Manassas, Va., near his home. As a research pilot, Crossfield flew numerous jet- and rocket-powered aircraft and became the fist person to fly twice the speed of sound.

    › Read More (pdf)
  • Aerovations Nov 2005 Cover - From Concept to Capability

    From Concept to Capability

    NASA's Small Business Innovation Research program and Small Business Technology Transfer program are engines for starting up new technologies and industries and providing researchers with valuable tools for exploring the unknown, defining research paths and identifying advancements in revolutionary technologies.

  • Marta Bohn-Meyer prepares for flight in an F-104. Beginning in her teen years, Bohn-Meyer's favorite place was in and around airplanes both at work and while off duty. She was an accomplished private pilot and flight engineer, and was the first female crew member to fly at Mach 3 in the SR-71.

    A tribute to Bohn-Meyer, 1957-2005

    Few tasks in life come harder than memorializing a well-lived life cut tragically short.

    There's the terrible abruptness of the news. A sudden, inexplicable end to so much promise, the silencing of a voice filled with great zest for living – words and rituals seem hopelessly insubstantial in the face of such loss.

  • In this illustration, the proposed Crew Exploration Vehicle is seen with its solar panels deployed and docked with a lunar lander in orbit.

    Dryden set for CEV role

    As steps are taken during the next two decades to develop a Crew Exploration Vehicle – using the Apollo missions of the past as a blueprint for future missions to the Moon and Mars – Dryden will play important roles in the CEV's development and operations.

  • From left are four of the five surviving X-15 pilots, Robert White, Bill Dana, Neil Armstrong and Joe Engle.

    A long-overdue tribute

    An elite group of Dryden research pilots who have met the requirements for receiving astronaut wings has been awarded the honor nearly four decades after they flew the missions that took them above the edge of space.

  • Former Dryden research pilot Ed Schneider signs autographs for young aviation enthusiasts at the City of Lancaster Aerospace Walk of Honor.

    Schneider walks the Walk

    Many know him as "Fast Eddie," the whiz kid NASA test pilot who was the youngest-ever graduate of the U.S. Navy's Test Pilot School.

    But it was a lot more than youthful charisma that earned Edward T. Schneider his slot on the City of Lancaster Aerospace Walk of Honor. It was a long list of accomplishments as test pilot, instructor and researcher in a career in which he logged more than 7,800 hours in 87 types of aircraft.

  • Dryden's Mate/Demate Device was used to raise Discovery and then lower it onto the NASA 747 aircraft that ferried it across the U.S. to Kennedy Space Center, Fla. A summer storm delayed operations, above, illuminating the night sky.

    Arrival - Discovery lands at Dryden, prepared for Kennedy return

    When Discovery landed Aug. 9, it marked a successful return to flight for the space shuttle program.

  • From left, Dryden Deputy Director Steve Schmidt and Dryden Shuttle Program Manager Joe D'Agostino greet Discovery Commander Eileen Collins and the crew.

    Astronauts recall mission

    Not a day went by that the Discovery astronauts didn't think of their fallen comrades from the Columbia mission.

  • The WATR 'antenna farm' is colorful at sunrise.

    Home on the Range

    When Discovery landed at Dryden Aug. 9, the Western Aeronautical Test Range staff was ready and waiting to welcome her home.