Media are invited to NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, on Friday, July 31, to attend a media tour and ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Flight Dynamics Research Facility, the agency’s first new wind tunnel in more than 40 years.

The event will include a brief media availability with:

• NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman
• Dr. Trina Dyal, center director, NASA Langley
• Administrator Edward C. Forst, U.S. General Services Administration

This event is in person only and open to members of the media who are United States citizens or lawful permanent residents. Information about timing will be shared closer to the event. NASA’s media accreditation policy is available online.

Media requesting to participate in person must RSVP no later than 5 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, July 29. Media RSVPs must be sent to Kimiko Booker, kimiko.s.booker@nasa.gov, and Brittny McGraw, brittny.v.mcgraw@nasa.gov, with the following information:

• Legal first and last names (must match government identification)
• Email
• Phone number
• Job title and organization

The wind tunnel opening marks a major milestone in the evolution of NASA and the nation’s aeronautics and space research capabilities. The state-of-the-art facility will support research and technology development that will advance NASA’s aeronautics, exploration, and science goals, including establishing a sustained human presence on the lunar surface through the Artemis program and the development of a Moon Base.

Learn more about the Flight Dynamics Research Facility at:

https://go.nasa.gov/4yzKEGQ

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Camille Gallo / Rob Margetta
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
camille.m.gallo@nasa.gov / robert.j.margetta@nasa.gov 

Kimiko Booker / Brittny McGraw
NASA Langley, Hampton, Va.
757-506-5939 / 757-769-3763
kimiko.s.booker@nasa.gov / brittny.v.mcgraw@nasa.gov

NASA Langley’s “Stars, Stripes, and Supernovas – Symphony Under the Stars” event brought employees, families, and community members together for an evening filled with music, connection, and celebration.  

Organizers planned the event, which took place July 16, to mark the 250^th anniversary of the founding of the United States of America. 

The evening featured a dynamic mix of performances from an orchestra that included NASA Langley employees and members of the Williamsburg Youth Orchestra, as well as smaller group performances from employees and special guest artist Karl Werne.  

“It’s fun to bring people together, to share their diverse talents in order to create something that’s meaningful – and in this case something that was very beautiful too,” said Jennifer Kibler, deputy director of the Research Directorate at NASA Langley.  

The orchestra played a selection of patriotic favorites and space-inspired pieces that highlighted the creativity and talent within the community. “America the Beautiful,” “God Bless America,” and “Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity” from Gustav Holst’s orchestral suite “The Planets” were among the songs they performed.  

The event, which also took place just one day before NASA Langley’s 109^th birthday, served as a reminder of the spirit that defines the center—scientists, engineers, communicators, and staff coming together to celebrate not only NASA’s mission, but the people who make that mission possible.  

“This was a big team effort,” said Nicole Oman, administrative management specialist with the Research Directorate. “It wouldn’t have been a success without the contributions of every single person.” 

Fifty years ago, NASA’s Viking 1 and 2 landers made the first successful landings on Mars, opening a new era in planetary exploration. Behind that achievement was a team at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, whose steady leadership and technical expertise helped turn an ambitious idea into a mission that reshaped how we explore other worlds.

Building the Blueprint for Mars

NASA selected Langley in 1968 to lead the massive Viking project, the first U.S. mission designed to land safely on Mars and search for signs of life. Project Manager James S. Martin Jr. set the tone from the start. He wanted clear priorities, tough engineering reviews, and the discipline to test every system until the team was confident it would perform on Mars.

Entry, Descent, and Landing

Langley engineers faced a challenge unlike anything attempted before: slowing a spacecraft plunging into the Martian atmosphere at more than 10,000 miles per hour. So they leaned into their expertise in atmospheric entry aerodynamics, heat shielding, and parachute technology. Their work produced the protective aeroshell and heat shield, as well as the supersonic parachute. These systems didn’t come from theory alone — they were shaped by years of wind‑tunnel tests, analysis, and problem‑solving. Langley still excels at entry, descent, and landing systems today.

Science and Safety, Hand in Hand

Langley also helped create a new approach to finding safe landing sites. Teams combined images from Viking’s orbiters with radar data from Earth‑based observatories to identify regions that balanced scientific value with engineering safety — a method now standard for Mars missions.

Viking also changed how mission teams operated. Engineers and scientists adopted the sol — a Martian day slightly longer than 24 hours — to keep daily work aligned with local time on Mars, a practice still used for surface missions.

A Mission Reborn: From Voyager to Viking

Viking grew out of a pivotal program shift. The earlier Voyager Mars lander concept was canceled because it was too costly and risky, relying on two large landers stacked on a single Saturn V rocket. Langley helped chart a more realistic path forward, pairing each lander with its own orbiter and using Titan IIIE‑Centaur rockets instead. The new design preserved scientific ambition while making the mission achievable.

A Legacy That Endures

Viking provided an early model for how NASA could explore the solar system: scout with orbiters, certify landing sites with real data, and land only with systems tested well beyond their limits. That “planetary playbook,” shaped heavily by Langley, provided a guide for future Mars missions like Curiosity and Perseverance.

The two landers returned thousands of images and groundbreaking data, revealing Mars as a world with weather, geologic history, and complexity that scientists are still studying today. And while no human has ever set foot on the Martian surface, Viking proved that reaching another planet — and working on it ­­— was within reach.

As the 50th anniversary of those landings arrives, Langley’s influence is unmistakable. The center continues to advance new entry, descent, and landing technologies, and explore concepts that will support future human explorers. The same spirit that guided Viking still drives the work happening in Hampton today — steady, curious, and always looking toward the next horizon.

NASA researchers recently put a new wing design, appearing long and thin with a lightweight structural design, through a series of grueling tests to find its structural limits. What they found left them encouraged about the wing’s potential, even when they pushed it past its intended limits.

The 15-foot Structural Wing Experiment Evaluating Truss-bracing (SWEET-15) test article is part of NASA’s research to develop future ultra-efficient aircraft. The design incorporates a long wing supported by an aerodynamic strut, based on NASA’s earlier Transonic Truss‑Braced Wing concept.

The research team is working to understand whether SWEET-15’s design and its new lightweight structural designs could help commercial airliners save fuel. But first, they need to understand how it behaves under the kinds of force wings experience in flight.

The SWEET-15 design originated with combining five different advanced composite manufacturing and assembly technologies that enabled the novel structural design. The 15-foot-long test article was then designed and fabricated at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, before traveling to NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, for testing.

Over several months, NASA engineers intentionally bent the test wing in the Flight Loads Laboratory at NASA Armstrong. Numerous strain and load sensors, including fiber-optic strain sensors, were placed throughout the structure to track how the wing responded as forces increased.

The data from the sensors confirmed the predictions made by NASA’s computer models. According to initial findings, the wing withstood the anticipated in-flight forces without issue. The results provided the team with confidence in the new manufacturing approaches and methods for connecting wing parts used in SWEET-15, which could support future efficient aircraft designs. The manufacturing approach, developed at NASA Langley used the Integrated Structural Assembly of Advanced Composites robot, aims to produce lighter and stronger composite structures for aerospace vehicles.

The test concluded with a deliberate test-to-failure, where engineers increased loads beyond the wing’s design limits to determine how and where it would fail. The structure ultimately failed at roughly 127% of its design limit load, with visible damage appearing near the back edge of the wing and in the upper wing cover. This element of testing provided valuable insight into how the joints connecting the wing to its main strut and a secondary one, called a jury strut, behave under forces beyond the expected flight envelope.

This marks the first time a representative composite truss-braced wing configuration has undergone this type of structural evaluation.  It was made possible only through NASA collaboration across centers and projects, with researchers utilizing agency resources such as the Fiber Optic Sensing System developed to gather data on both aircraft and spacecraft.

To prepare for the testing, engineers at NASA Langley designed, analyzed, and manufactured the wing and completed safety preparations and lab setup.

Researchers will now analyze the data collected during testing to inform future airframe designs and support NASA’s ongoing efforts to develop more efficient aviation technologies.

The work is being conducted through NASA’s Subsonic Flight Demonstrator project in the agency’s Research Technology Mission Directorate. The successful testing of multiple innovative components marks a milestone in NASA’s aeronautics research.

To learn more, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/aeronautics/

For more than 100 years, wind tunnels at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, have helped shape the future of flight.  

Now, two of NASA’s longest-serving facilities — the 12-Foot Low-Speed Tunnel and the 20-Foot Vertical Spin Tunnel — will pass the torch to the Flight Dynamics Research Facility (FDRF), the first major NASA wind tunnel built in more than 40 years.  

“The FDRF has a combination of features found in no other single facility in the world,” said Mike Fremaux, retired chief engineer for the Intelligent Flight Systems division at NASA Langley. “It’s a high-performance vertical wind tunnel with a large test section capable of conducting all manner of tests to assess the dynamics of flight vehicles.”  

When the FDRF opens later this year, it will provide enhanced versions of the capabilities offered by the two legacy facilities. The FDRF’s test section will allow researchers to drop models into a rising vertical airflow. This will offer researchers the ability to conduct spin tests of aircraft and free-flight tests of vehicles designed to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere from space.  

The FDRF will play an integral role in conducting research that supports NASA’s aeronautics, science, and space exploration missions. Like many NASA facilities, the FDRF’s story is rooted in a history of innovation.

12-Foot Low-Speed Tunnel  

When the 12-Foot Low-Speed Tunnel began operations in 1939, aviation looked very different than it does today.

It was built for NASA’s predecessor agency, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) to study the controllability of airplanes using free flight. Aircraft models flew unsupported in the wind it generated, instead of being mounted to supports. Multiple operators used rudimentary remote controls to operate the models in the tunnel.  

The facility that housed the tunnel boasted a unique design: a 60-foot diameter sphere. The configuration allowed the tunnel to move and adapt to the flight paths of free flying models. “Pilots” could use hydraulic actuators, pivoting the tunnel’s test section to match the models’ movements. The spherical design made it easy for air from the facility’s fan to recirculate through the tunnel, regardless of the pitch angle of the test section.  

In 1958, NASA moved the free-flight tests to another Langley tunnel. The agency deactivated the 12-Foot’s hydraulic actuators, fixing its test section into a horizontal position, and began using it for more conventional testing, looking at how aerodynamic force affected the stability and control of strut-mounted models.

The 12-Foot supported major projects throughout its 86 years of service, from the transition from bi-planes to monoplanes between two world wars, through the development of supersonic aircraft. Revolutionary designs saw testing in the 12-Foot, from the forward-swept-wing X-29 and the X-31 Enhanced Fighter Maneuverability Demonstrator, to the more recent X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft, and the aeroshell for NASA’s Dragonfly, a unique rotorcraft designed to explore Titan, Saturn’s largest moon.  

The 12-Foot closed in 2025, but its legacy will be both felt and seen at the FDRF. Six wooden fan blades and the central metal fan hub from the 12-Foot are on display inside the FDRF’s control room.  

20-Foot Vertical Spin Tunnel  

While the 12-Foot tested new ideas for aircraft and components, the 20-Foot Vertical Spin Tunnel played a critical role in aviation safety.  

Opened in 1941, the Vertical Spin Tunnel was designed to study aircraft stall and spin characteristics. Its aim was to prevent deadly accidents in which an aircraft enters an uncontrolled spin. The vertical design allowed models to fall into the rising airflow, simulating how aircraft behave during a spin. Researchers hand-launched models into the tunnel’s vertically rising airstream to evaluate those characteristics.  

The tunnel quickly became one of the most important spin-testing facilities in the world. Research supported commercial aviation, parachute design systems, NASA space missions, and the development of nearly every U.S. military aircraft designed since World War II.  

Models from many of those tests will be on display in the FDRF’s lobby, a testament to the Vertical Spin Tunnel’s rich history.  

“It is great to showcase the legacy of work that started in the NACA days and will continue going forward for decades to come,” Fremaux said.

New era of flight research

The FDRF will continue NASA’s commitment to world-class facilities and the unique expertise of the agency’s workforce.  

“That’s what kept those other facilities going,” Fremaux said. “Not just the buildings, the fans, and the motors, but also the expertise associated with those facilities. You can’t have one without the other.”  

The FDRF will build not only on the history of the 12-Foot tunnel and the Vertical Spin Tunnel, but on their equipment, including many of their major test rigs, instrumentation, and data systems, were repurposed for use in the FDRF, reducing costs and development time.  

As NASA returns astronauts to the Moon through the Artemis program, the FDRF will play a vital role in testing the technologies for entry, descent, and landing that will ensure a safe return to Earth. Research within the FDRF also will support science missions to planets and moons with atmospheres, such as Venus and Saturn’s moon, Titan. The 25,000-square-foot facility will play a major role in experimental research for NASA’s development of X-planes, autonomous flight vehicles, and drones.  

“For me, seeing FDRF come alive and being prepared to begin supporting important agency missions, after 30 years of working on the concept behind the scenes with formal and informal teams of motivated, innovative coworkers, is the most rewarding capstone I could have in my career,” Fremaux said.  

Just as the 12-Foot Low-Speed Tunnel and the 20-Foot Vertical Spin Tunnel supported decades of aerospace innovation, the FDRF is ready to shape the future of flight.

Kimiko Booker
NASA Langley Research Center

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