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5 Min Read

NASA’s Home for Experimental Flight Advances Aeronautics Mission

Nestled in the Mojave Desert, NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, pushes the boundaries of flight to advance the agency’s aeronautics mission. This is where Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier and engineers are now pioneering the future of high-speed, autonomous, and electrified aircraft. Armstrong contributes to NASA’s broader mission of innovation and collaboration, leveraging its uniquely capable location.

The story begins in 1947, when 13 engineers and technicians from NASA’s predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, arrived at Muroc Army Airfield – now Edwards Air Force Base – in Southern California’s high desert to establish the Station for High-Speed Research. Their mission was to prepare for the first supersonic research flights of the X-1 rocket plane. The Bell X-1 became the first aircraft to fly faster than the speed of sound in level flight, a historic milestone that marked the dawn of a new era in aviation and helped cement Edwards Air Force Base as a cornerstone of NASA’s flight research enterprise.

Today, NASA’s mission continues that tradition, supporting cutting-edge projects in aeronautics like the X-59 quiet supersonic technology aircraft, hypersonic research, and emerging technologies in advanced air mobility, with flight testing led at NASA Armstrong in collaboration with other NASA centers and industry partners.

Why Edwards?

NASA Armstrong’s location at Edwards Air Force Base supports NASA’s flight research that would be difficult or impossible elsewhere, offering unmatched access to the largest secure flight test range in the nation equipped with specialized testing instrumentation. The base spans roughly 470 square miles of mission-critical terrain, including Rogers Dry Lake’s 44-square-mile surface. This range provides extensive restricted airspace enabling safe, complex flight-testing scenarios for NASA teams across multiple programs.

Almost from the start of aeronautical advancements, the region’s natural geography played a critical role. In 1937, nearly all the U.S. Army Air Corp’s fleet conducted maneuvers above Rogers Dry Lake – then known as Muroc Dry Lake – a vast, flat expanse formed by ancient geological processes that serves as a unique emergency landing site. Its hard-packed surface and wide-open area provide a natural safety net for experimental aircraft, offering a margin of safety that’s critical during high-risk missions.

With the U.S. involvement in World War II, the area’s importance grew, bringing additional resources, new facilities, and a focus on research, and experimentation with new aircraft designs. Today, the airspace above the region includes the Bell X-1 Supersonic Corridor, a designated section of restricted airspace within the Edwards test range. This corridor provides a safe, controlled environment for supersonic and transonic flight testing, enabling precision maneuvers at high speeds over the Mojave Desert. Combined with nearly year-round flying weather and low population density, this unique airspace supports uninterrupted flight operations for NASA’s aeronautics programs.

A culture of innovation

NASA’s X-plane legacy is deeply rooted in its history. From the X-1 to the X-59, NASA has developed dozens of X-planes – many flight-tested at Edwards with contributions by Armstrong and other NASA centers. These experimental aircraft were designed to push the boundaries of flight and test new technologies. At Edwards, NASA teams have tested everything from lifting body designs – critical for spacecraft and reentry research – to digital fly-by-wire systems, which have become standard in commercial aviation.

This culture of innovation continues today as NASA’s aeronautics team – leveraging Armstrong’s flight research expertise – advances advanced air mobility, electrified propulsion, and autonomous flight systems. The center’s location and infrastructure enable rapid prototyping and testing, accelerating NASA’s ability to mature next generation aviation technologies.

Partnerships with the U.S. Air Force further strengthen NASA’s capabilities. Shared resources, coordinated airspace management, and joint operations allow NASA researchers to conduct complex missions with support and safety protocols, while collaborating across NASA centers and industry.

Supporting a broad mission portfolio

While Armstrong is best known for experimental aircraft, NASA’s work at Edwards supports a diverse mission portfolio. The center supports Earth science missions, airborne sensor testing, and planetary exploration. Its aircraft – including ER-2 and Gulfstream – carry instruments that study climate, weather, and atmospheric composition, contributing vital data to NASA’s science goals in partnership with agency science teams.

Edwards’ location and infrastructure enable these missions by providing access to high-altitude corridors, stable flying conditions, and the ability to integrate new technologies quickly. Whether it’s testing sensors for Mars exploration or flying over hurricanes to collect data, NASA’s airborne science, supported by Armstrong’s flight operations, advance agency priorities.

Milestones that matter

NASA’s flight research heritage at Edwards includes milestones that have shaped aviation history:

• 1947: Chuck Yeager breaks the sound barrier in the Bell X-1.
• 1960s-70s: Lifting body aircraft tested at Edwards lay the groundwork for the space shuttle. NASA tested the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle at Edwards in the mid-1960s to develop techniques later used by Apollo astronauts.
• 1980s: Digital fly-by-wire systems validated at NASA Armstrong become standard in commercial aviation.
• 2000s and beyond: Two successful flights of a scramjet-powered airplane, the X-43A, at hypersonic speeds – greater than Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound. Autonomous aircraft and drones tested for Earth science and defense applications. The X-59 prepares to demonstrate quiet supersonic flight over land, potentially reshaping commercial aviation.

Each of these achievements reflects NASA collaboration, drawing on location, infrastructure, and culture to deliver agency impact. As aviation enters a new era of fuel savings, autonomy, and accessibility, NASA’s aeronautics team – through flight research at Armstrong and elsewhere – remains steady to test the technologies that will define the future of flight.

Looking ahead

With growing interest in advanced air mobility, high-speed flight research, and new aircraft technologies, NASA’s integrated approach is more critical than ever. NASA Armstrong’s flight test discipline and safety frameworks contribute to agency-wide risk management and systems engineering, supporting NASA’s top priorities – from commercial supersonic technologies to the safety practices that underpin human spaceflight.

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As part of a Golden Age of exploration and discovery, NASA announced Friday the agency is increasing its cadence of missions under the Artemis program to achieve the national objective of returning American astronauts to the Moon and establishing an enduring presence. This includes standardizing vehicle configuration, adding an additional mission in 2027, and undertaking at least one surface landing every year thereafter.

As teams prepare to launch Artemis II in the weeks ahead, the Artemis III mission, now in 2027, will be designed to test out systems and operational capabilities in low Earth orbit to prepare for an Artemis IV landing in 2028. This new mission will endeavor to include a rendezvous and docking with one or both commercial landers from SpaceX and Blue Origin, in-space tests of the docked vehicles, integrated checkout of life support, communications, and propulsion systems, as well as tests of the new Extravehicular Activity (xEVA) suits. NASA will further define this test flight after completing detailed reviews between NASA and our industry partners. The agency will share the specific objectives for the updated Artemis III mission in the near future.

NASA’s recently announced workforce directive is a key factor in enabling this acceleration. NASA will rebuild core competencies in the civil servant workforce including more in-house and side-by-side development work with our Artemis partners, enabling a safer, more reliable, and faster launch cadence.

“NASA must standardize its approach, increase flight rate safely, and execute on the President’s national space policy. With credible competition from our greatest geopolitical adversary increasing by the day, we need to move faster, eliminate delays, and achieve our objectives,” said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. “Standardizing vehicle configuration, increasing flight rate and progressing through objectives in a logical, phased approach, is how we achieved the near-impossible in 1969 and it is how we will do it again.” 

“After successful completion of the Artemis I flight test, the upcoming Artemis II flight test, and the new, more robust test approach to Artemis III, it is needlessly complicated to alter the configuration of the SLS and Orion stack to undertake subsequent Artemis missions,” said NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya. “There is too much learning left on the table and too much development and production risk in front of us. Instead, we want to keep testing like we fly and have flown. We are looking back to the wisdom of the folks that designed Apollo. The entire sequence of Artemis flights needs to represent a step-by-step build-up of capability, with each step bringing us closer to our ability to perform the landing missions. Each step needs to be big enough to make progress, but not so big that we take unnecessary risk given previous learnings. Therefore, we want to fly the landing missions in as close to the same Earth ascent configuration as possible – this means using an upper stage and pad systems in as close to the ‘Block 1’ configuration as possible. We will work with our partners that have been developing the evolved block configuration of these systems to take proper actions to align their efforts towards this goal and announce the details of those changes once they are finalized. We will take a similar approach to in-space, landing, and surface EVA operations as well, as we evolve the mission sequence in the spirit of the Apollo mindset, which was obsessed with system reliability and crew safety as the keys to mission success.” 

“Boeing is a proud partner to the Artemis mission and our team is honored to contribute to NASA’s vision for American space leadership,” said Steve Parker, Boeing Defense, Space & Security president and CEO. “The SLS core stage remains the world’s most powerful rocket stage, and the only one that can carry American astronauts directly to the moon and beyond in a single launch. As NASA lays out an accelerated launch schedule, our workforce and supply chain are prepared to meet the increased production needs. With a rocket designed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, built at America’s rocket factory at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, and integrated at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, we are ready to meet the increased demand.” 

The announcement came during a news conference at NASA Kennedy where leaders also discussed the status of the Artemis II mission. NASA rolled the SLS and Orion spacecraft to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) on Feb. 25 for repairs ahead of the next launch opportunities for the test flight in April. 

Once the Artemis II hardware was back in the VAB, teams immediately began work on the helium issue discovered on the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage and prepared for several actions including replacing batteries in the flight termination system, end-to-end testing for range safety requirements, and more.

“I’m grateful to Administrator Isaacman for taking this bold step and moving quickly to assure we have the support and resources needed to launch Artemis astronauts to the Moon every year,” said Lori Glaze, acting associate administrator for Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Our team is up to the challenge of a successful Artemis II mission, and soon thereafter, enabling a more frequent cadence of Moon missions.” 

For more about the Artemis campaign, visit: 

https://www.nasa.gov/artemis

-end-

Bethany Stevens / Cheryl Warner
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
bethany.c.stevens@nasa.gov / cheryl.m.warner@nasa.gov

Residents of the U.S. Mid-Atlantic endured a formidable winter in 2025-2026, marked by several high-impact storms and prolonged stretches of cold temperatures that left parts of the Chesapeake Bay frozen over. Longtime residents may recall a winter nearly 50 years ago when the region saw even more widespread ice cover. 

The MSS (Multispectral Scanner System) on Landsat 1 captured this image during the exceptionally cold winter of 1976-1977. The mosaic combines two Landsat scenes acquired on February 7 with a third captured on February 8. The landscape is shown in false color (MSS bands 6-5-4), in which ice appears in shades of blue, green, and white. On land, snow appears white, vegetation is red, and urban areas take on brown-gray tones.

A NASA analysis published in 1980 drew on these and other Landsat images to examine the anomalous ice conditions. Images indicate that ice began forming in the Chesapeake Bay’s upper tributaries in late December 1976 and spread to the middle of the upper bay by mid-January 1977. It reached its maximum extent around the time of this image, one week into February, when ice spanned 85 percent of the bay.

Persistent westerly winds at the start of February pushed ice toward the eastern shores of the Chesapeake and Delaware bays, contributing to fractures visible across the ice’s surface. As winds subsided, calmer conditions allowed new ice to form in areas of previously open water, visible in the image as thinner, darker blue patches. Reports from icebreaking operations indicated ice thicknesses reached up to 30 centimeters (12 inches) in the upper bay and up to 20 centimeters (8 inches) in the lower bay, with some tributaries seeing twice that amount.

Articles describing the event often show photos of people ice skating off Kent Island in front of the Bay Bridge and people driving cars and tractors across the ice. But the deep freeze strained the region, too. The ice and cold water caused high mortality in the area’s shellfish. And the crushing weight of the ice shifting with the tides damaged numerous piers, marinas, and lighthouses.

In winter 2025-2026, ice on the Chesapeake and Delaware bays appeared less extensive, with U.S. National Ice Center ice charts showing around 38 percent coverage on February 9 and 10. Still, concentrations in the upper bay and its tributaries this season were substantial enough to allow uncommon winter activities, including ice boaters racing across the frozen Claiborne Cove of Maryland’s Eastern Shore. At the same time, it created challenges for local watermen, according to news reports, trapping boats and limiting access to the bay.  

NASA Earth Observatory image by Mike Taylor, Ginger Butcher, and Michala Garrison, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Story by Kathryn Hansen.

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February 7-8, 1977

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References & Resources

• CBS News (2026, February 9) Frozen Chesapeake Bay leaves Maryland watermen struggling during peak oyster season. Accessed February 26, 2026.
• Chesapeake Bay Magazine (2025, January 16) Ice Heroes: A Maryland Pilot’s Firsthand Account of the Historic 1977 Bay Freeze. Accessed February 26, 2026.
• Foster, J. L. (1980, March) Ice Conditions on the Chesapeake s Bay as Observes! from Landsat During the Winters of 1977, 1978 and 1979. NASA Technical Memorandum, 80657.
• Library of Congress (2023, July 28) The World as Seen by ERTS-1. Accessed February 26, 2026.
• NASA (2026, February 13) Landsat 1 Graphics Library. Accessed February 26, 2026.
• NASA (2026, February 12) Sick of freezing temperatures? For ice boaters, they’ve been a bonanza. Accessed February 26, 2026.
• Secrets of the Eastern Shore (2022, January 16) The Great Eastern Shore Deep Freeze of 1976-77! Accessed February 26, 2026.
• U.S. National Ice Center (2026, February 26) Mid-Atlantic Ice Chart. Accessed February 26, 2026.

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JPL 3D-Printed Part Springs Forward

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With a simple motion, a jack-in-the-box-like spring designed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory showed the potential of additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing, to cut costs and complexity for futuristic space antennas. Called JPL Additive Compliant Canister (JACC), the spring deployed on the small commercial spacecraft Proteus Space’s Mercury One on Feb. 3, 2026. An onboard camera captured this video of the spring popping out of its container as the spacecraft passed over the Pacific Ocean in low Earth orbit.

Figure A is a still image of JACC after deployment, taken above Antarctica.

JACC is one of two JPL payloads on the spacecraft that are demonstrating new technologies designed to take up reduced volume while precisely deploying antennas on future orbiters. JACC’s success demonstrates that 3D-printed mechanisms can be built faster, cheaper, and with less complexity than traditionally fabricated space hardware. 

Printed out of titanium, JACC uses three times fewer parts than similar structures: Combined into a single part is a hinge, panel, compression spring, and two torsion springs. Weighing just over 1 pound (498 grams), it is about 4 inches (10 centimeters) on each side. The spring, which extends from a packed height of just over 1 inch to about 6 inches (3 centimeters to 15 centimeters), is modeled after communication antennas commonly used on satellites. 

The second demonstration payload aboard Mercury One is the Solid Underconstrained Multi-Frequency (SUM) Deployable Antenna for Earth Science. Together with JACC, the two payloads go by the name Prototype Actuated Nonlinear Deployables Offering Repeatable Accuracy Stowed on a Box (PANDORASBox). They were both conceived, built, tested, and delivered for flight by JPL in less than one year on minimal budgets.

Mercury One launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Nov. 28, 2025, as part of SpaceX’s Transporter-15 mission.

JPL internal research development funds supported JACC, as did NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO).

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By Chris Burns, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

For over 50 years, the Landsat program has provided the longest continuous satellite record of Earth’s land surface from space. Landsat 9, launched in 2021, is the latest mission in this remarkable legacy — building on decades of Earth observation with upgraded technology, including enhanced radiometric resolution, improved signal-to-noise performance, and polar night thermal imaging. Working in tandem with Landsat 8 to map the entire planet every eight days, Landsat 9’s data is being fused with the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2 satellites to enable near-daily global observations, delivering sharper, more detailed observations that help scientists and communities monitor a changing planet.

VIDEO SCRIPT

It started over 50 years ago with an idea:
 
A satellite, orbiting Earth, observing our planet’s surface, gathering data, day in, day out.
 
That idea gave birth to the Landsat program, a partnership between NASA and the US Geological Survey, the longest continuous record of Earth’s land surface from space.
 
Landsat 1’s launch in 1972 was the first link in a chain of 8 satellites, each one building upon the last.
 
And today, Landsat 9 carries that legacy forward.
 
Since its launch in 2021, Landsat 9 helping collect more scenes per day than any previous Landsat satellite mission. collects as many scenes per day as Landsats 5 & 7 combined.
 
Working in tandem with Landsat 8, the pair now collect nearly 1,500 scenes daily, creating a complete map of the planet’s land surface every 8 days.
 
It’s not just about scale — it’s about Landsat’s ability to revisit the same scene multiple times a month. With this pace of acquisitions, Landsat 9 helps track seasonal shifts in crops, the spread of wildfires, the aftermath of storms, and even rapid changes in glaciers and coastlines.
 
More images mean more data, fueling research and scientific applications around the world.
 
But when it comes to Landsat 9’s imagery, it’s not just about quantity – it’s about quality too.
 
While Landsat 9’s main design is nearly identical to Landsat 8’s, it’s able to collect data in greater detail thanks to an upgraded radiometric resolution — 14-bit instead of Landsat 8’s 12-bit.
 
Think of it like upgrading from a box of 4,000 crayons to one with 16,000 — every shade captured, every subtle detail sharper.
 
Landsat 9’s quadrupled radiometric sensitivity makes a real difference when capturing data over the planet’s brightest surfaces, like snow and ice, revealing subtle changes that might otherwise go unnoticed: shifts in ice extent, changes in how surfaces reflect sunlight, even the growth of glacial lakes forming where ice once stood.
 
Seeing more shades of detail is powerful, but it only matters if the picture itself is clear.
 
Landsat 9 not only sharpens what we can detect, it also cuts through the static, delivering a stronger signal-to-noise ratio, which means images that have less interference. 
 
It’s like trying to hear a whisper in a noisy room — Landsat 9 quiets the static so we don’t miss anything important.
 
And that clarity makes a difference, especially over dark surfaces like water which can harbor harmful algal blooms that can spread quickly, threatening drinking water supplies, local wildlife and even human safety.
 
By spotting these blooms with greater sensitivity, Landsat 9 gives communities and scientists more reliable and actionable information to respond.
 
Landsat 9 doesn’t clock out when the sun goes down – its onboard thermal sensor, TIRS, measures our planet’s surface heat even in darkness.
 
That means we can monitor urban heat islands, volcanic hotspots, and water temperature at night.
 
Since 2022, the US Geological Survey’s special request data program has implemented the Landsat Extended Acquisition of the Poles, or LEAP for short, taking advantage of Landsat 9’s ability to see in the dark to acquire imagery in polar regions year-round when the sun can set for up to six months at the poles.
 
Together with Landsat 8, the satellites can detect features like meltwater, cracks, and even open water within ice under low light conditions.
 
The enhanced coverage helps scientists better monitor ice dynamics and seasonal changes in polar regions, detecting calving events, surface melt, and changes in sea ice extent even during the dark months.
 
Landsat 9 isn’t working alone — it’s part of a global team of satellites, where collaboration across agencies and nations is giving us the clearest, most consistent view of Earth yet.
 
NASA’s Harmonized Landsat Sentinel-2 project fuses data from Landsats 8 & 9 with that of the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2 A,B and C satellites to form a seamless, consistent surface reflectance record.
 
In this “virtual constellation,” Landsat 9 contributes its spectral precision and calibrated data, helping enable global observations every 1-2 days at 30-meter resolution.
 
Landsat 9’s high fidelity, radiometric stability, and continuity anchor HLS, ensuring that the fused product maintains the scientific integrity that Landsat users expect.
 
Landsat 9 is more than just today’s mission — it’s part of the foundation for the future.
 
Through the Sustainable Land Imaging program, NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey aims to preserve our ability to keep a continuous, reliable record of Earth’s land for decades to come.
 
That means not just flying satellites, but building the technology, partnerships, and planning needed to keep the record unbroken.
 
Within SLI, NASA’s Sustainable Land Imaging–Technology initiative is testing new instruments that could make future missions smaller, more capable, and more efficient.
 
Landsat 9 is NASA’s first SLI mission and plays a key role here, setting the benchmark for data quality and coverage, proving what works today and guiding the technologies of tomorrow.
 
Its stability and precision are hallmarks of previous lessons learned, allowing scientists to trust the record across decades, and its success helps guide the innovations that will come next.
 
For more than half a century, Landsat satellites have given us an unbroken record of our changing planet.
 
In just four years, Landsat 9 has brought that vision into even sharper focus — capturing millions of scenes, advancing how we track water, ice, and land, and strengthening the world’s longest Earth-observation record.
 
It’s not just another satellite in orbit. It’s a bridge — carrying the Landsat legacy forward with enhanced technology while preparing the foundation for the future of sustainable land imaging.
 
Because with Landsat, every image is more than a picture — it’s a calibrated digital record, providing knowledge we can use to understand, protect, and sustain life on Earth.

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