Dryden Home > Collections > Photo Home > Aircraft Fleet 2000s > Aircraft Fleet 2000s Photo Contact Sheet |
Aircraft Fleet 2000s Photo Gallery Contact Sheet |
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Photo Date: | November 25, 2008 |
Formats: | Low Resolution Image Contact Sheet (19489 KBytes) Medium Resolution Image Contact Sheet (19493 KBytes) High Resolution Image Contact Sheet (19485 KBytes) |
Photo Description: |
Aircraft Fleet 2000s |
Project Description: |
As the 21st century dawned, space-related activities at Dryden continued to expand. The X-38 continued to make research flights. The X-40A made glide flights at Dryden after being dropped from a CH-46 helicopter. The X-40A’s free flight and landing tests were being conducted as part of NASA’s X-37 program, intended to reduce the risk of flight testing the X-37 experimental re-entry vehicle. The X-37 will enable NASA to test advanced technologies in the harsh environment of space and in returning through Earth’s atmosphere. The X-40A is an 85 percent scale version of the X-37. Another space-related project was the X-43A, the flight research vehicle for the Hyper-X project to test a supersonic ramjet (scramjet) engine at speeds of Mach 7 and Mach 10. The X-43A was scheduled to be boosted to the test speed my a Pegasus booster launched from a B-52. It would then separate and its engine would operate for a very short period to provide data for further development of airbreathing scramjet technology. |
Keywords: | Fleet; 2000s; X-38; X-40A; X-37; X-43A; Hyper-X; scramjet; supersonic combustion ramjet; Dryden Flight Research Center; NASA |
Dryden Home > Collections > Photo Home > Aircraft Fleet 2000s > Aircraft Fleet 2000s Photo Contact Sheet |
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Last Modified: November 25, 2008 |