Browse Archive

  • Uninhabited air vehicles such as, clockwise from bottom left, the Global Hawk, Pathfinder Plus, Perseus B and Altair, center, could be selected for research leading to routine access to national airspace by high-altitude, long-endurance aircraft. NASA Illustration by Jaimie Baccus

    Dryden management plans today with an eye on tomorrow

    Projects on the scale of Apollo and the X-15 will be fewer in number in Dryden's future, but new tasks lie ahead in aeronautics. To meet the challenges presented by these new types of work and projects, Dryden has recalibrated its management and procedures to match redefined NASA mission and budget priorities.

  • The DC-8 - bearing its Dryden paint scheme - flies a mission in 2004. The research aircraft recently returned from a mission in Alaska.

    DC-8 completes Alaskan mission

    NASA's DC-8 traveled to frosty Alaska in November to study active volcanoes, the Hubbard glacier, forests and sea ice. Using the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (AirSAR), digital elevation models were taken that will allow scientists to evaluate landscape changes and assess volcanic hazards.

  • NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe

    O'Keefe resigns

    NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe, who in the past three years led the Agency through an aggressive and comprehensive management transformation and helped it through one of its most painful tragedies, has resigned his post.

  • Dryden employees welcome the NB-52B back to Dryden in November after its successful X-43A airlaunch, the final mission of its nearly 50-year career.

    Fond Farewell

    Dryden's venerable NB-52B aircraft was recognized Dec. 17 for a career spanning nearly fifty years, a tour of duty in which the big bird played a role in airlaunching generations of experimental aircraft.

  • Dryden pilot John Manke (later a Dryden Center Director) waves to the NB-52B crew after a successful research mission in which the

    Remembering the workhorse NB-52B

    With a penchant for chasing tomorrow, NASA's B-52B "008" perenially carried the future of flight under its wing.

  • The Pegasus rocket that powered NASA’s X-43A scramjet to almost Mach 10 test conditions leaves a bright arc in the Pacific sky during the boost phase.

    Exploring the Hypersonic Realm

    The X-43A team shattered a speed record Nov. 16 for the second time this year when the aircraft successfully reached speeds approaching Mach 10.

  • U.S. Navy E-2C Hawkeye

    E-2C Hawkeye: Loads Lab Tapped for 7-Month Navy Job

    A U.S. Navy E-2C Hawkeye, a carrier-based electronics platform that serves as the eyes and ears of carrier battle groups, arrived at Dryden recently from its base at the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division at Patuxent River, Md.

  • Helios Prototype

    The Promise of ERAST

    A key anniversary in the development of uninhabited air vehicles quietly passed this fall. It marked 10 years since an agreement was signed that resulted the maturation of technologies, science instruments and sensors required for UAV missions.

  • Joe Niquette works in the engine compartment of an ER-2.

    Dryden's 'Rat Pack'

    They're affectionately (if unofficially) known as the hangar rats. They've been fixtures on the Dryden landscape for decades. And their mandate is simple, but far from easy: keep the planes running - safely.