With the week wrapping up, here’s what NASA is presenting to the public at EAA Oshkosh 2024. Full of research and development, NASA’s Bob Pearce, Associate Administrator for the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, gave us some background into ongoing and upcoming projects.
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The X-59 has been under development for years now. While its first flight is hopefully coming later this year, what do all the program’s test pilots do when there’s no plane to fly? The X-59’s lead test pilot Nils Larson and his partner Jim Less gave a good explanation with what has kept them busy.
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It’s that time of year again where the aviation world descends onto the city of Oshkosh, Wisconsin for the annual EAA AirVenture fly-in convention. It is also our yearly reminder that the second letter of NASA stands for “Aeronautics,” as they will have a pretty serious presence this year surrounding their X-59 supersonic test plane.
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Development for NASA’s X-59 aircraft has been in full swing for the last couple of months following a pause due to COVID. Now that things are ramping up again, NASA is awarding contracts to aerospace companies to assist in the development. The latest of these contracts has just been awarded to Lockheed Martin.
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NASA has announced that technicians working on assembling the X-59 airplane completed a major milestone in its construction back on November 5. On that day, technicians were successfully able to close up the airplane’s wing, encasing interior components that will never be touched by human hands again.
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