Aircraft

NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center is to develop a small-scale flight-test article that uses "beyond state-of-the-art technologies" for adaptive wing-shape control with the help of the California based-Pyramid Space company.

The hypersonic flight technologies company will work with Dryden's advanced structures and measurement technology group to produce a concept design for an adaptive wing shape control flight test article.

The US space agency claims that only Pyramid Space has the "unique and proprietary capabilities to provide the required services". Pyramid Space declined to comment on the project.

NASA is also seeking university and industry partners to work with it and the US Air Force Research Laboratory's Office of Science Research (AFOSR) to establish three national hypersonic science centres. NASA's fundamental aeronautics programme and the AFOSR plan to spend up to $30 million to fund the centres over five years. The jointly funded programme will support university-level basic science or engineering research that provides an improved understanding of hypersonic flight.

"We have identified three critical research areas, air-breathing propulsion, materials and structures, and boundary layer control. These three areas are the biggest hurdles to successful hypersonic flight and low-cost space access using an air-breathing engine," says NASA's Langley Research Center based-fundamental aeronautics programme's hypersonics project's principal investigator James Pittman.