The Armstrong Flight Research Center is named in recognition of Apollo 11 Commander Neil A. Armstrong. Before Armstrong was an astronaut, he was a research test pilot at the center. Neil was also the first man to walk on the Moon.
The Armstrong Flight Research Center is situated in Edwards, California, in the western Mojave Desert.
The center is uniquely located to take advantage of year-round flying weather and 301,000 acres of a secluded area with diverse topography to advance science and technology throughout the flight.
The Armstrong Flight Research Center is NASA’s Primary Center for High-Risk Projects, Including Atmospheric Flight Research.
The center has the facilities and requisite expertise to conceive, analyze, design, fabricate, integrate, maintain, and conduct disciplinary research, flight research, and flight tests on modified or unusual research vehicles and systems. The Armstrong Flight Research Center’s strength is in the integration of complex developmental systems.
For almost 75 years, research at NASA The Armstrong Flight Research Center has led to important breakthroughs and advancements in the capabilities and design of many state-of-the-art civil and military aircraft.
The Armstrong Flight Research Center demonstrates America’s leadership in aeronautics, aerospace technology, and Earth and space science. The center’s attempts to revolutionize aviation contribute to mankind’s knowledge of the universe and to the understanding and protection of Earth.
The Center is Exploring and Testing Flying
Helping NASA’s vision to build a new global aviation system for the 21st Century, The Armstrong Flight Research Center aeronautics engineers, researchers, and pilots use world-class NASA facilities to keep U.S. aviation first in innovation, safety, and efficiency.
The Armstrong Flight Research Center explores technologies that decrease aircraft noise and fuel use and get you gate-to-gate on time and safely, including transforming aviation into an economic engine at all altitudes. Current or recent projects involve:
- Helping industry to reliably develop an advanced air mobility system to move cargo and people between places previously not served or underserved by aeronautics
- Gathering data that could make supersonic flight over land possible, reducing travel time in the United States or anywhere in the world
- Developing commercial aircraft energy and environmental impacts by designing tools to test and validate electrified aircraft propulsion technologies
The Armstrong Flight Research Center operates a fleet of highly specialized aircraft like DC-8, C-20A, ER-2, and B200 that carry a wide variety of Earth science missions under the Airborne Science Program. Current or recent tasks include:
- Gathering data over specified areas repeatedly over time to collect data for geological studies
- Investigating atmospheric effects of wildland and agricultural fires in the U.S.
- Improving snowfall remote sensing understanding and modeling to advance predictive capabilities
In support of the work of NASA’s astrophysics, The Armstrong Flight Research Center manages flight operations of (SOFIA) or the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy program, which features a 106-inch primary mirror and also a high-tech telescope that weighs around 37,500 pounds aboard a highly altered Boeing 747SP aircraft. This program is in cooperation with NASA Ames Research Center and the German Aerospace Center.
Credit: NASA.
The Armstrong Flight Research Center Also Managed Launch Abort Systems Integration and Testing.
In support of space exploration, The Armstrong Flight Research Center also managed launch abort systems integration and testing in partnership with Lockheed Martin and the Johnson Space Center for the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, a spacecraft built to take humans farther than they’ve ever gone before.
The launch abort system pulls the crew capsule with astronauts away from the rocket to safety in case of a sudden emergency during the launch or ascent.
Orion Ascent Abort (A.A.)-2 launched on July 2, 2019, which signified a milestone in NASA’s preparation for Artemis missions to the Moon in 2025.
The Armstrong Flight Research Center also supports NASA’s space technology development efforts through its management of the Flight Opportunities program, which facilitates rapid demonstration of space exploration technologies and expansion of space commerce through suborbital testing with industry flight providers.
The program matures capabilities that could aid NASA’s future space exploration activities while strategically investing in the growth of the U.S. commercial spaceflight industry.
Armstrong Center Explores Capabilities
Along with research and support aircraft, The Armstrong Flight Research Center’s capabilities include flight simulation, the ability to validate high temperature and flight loads, flight test instrumentation, processing flight research data, and expertise in remotely operated aircraft flight research.
The Armstrong Flight Research Center system of facilities consists of the Science Operations Building 703 in Palmdale, the Consolidated Information Technology Center, Experimental Fabrication and Repair, the Flight Loads Laboratory, and the Research Aircraft Integration Facility.
For decades, the Dryden Aeronautical Test Range has provided backup communications for the International Space Station and the Russian Soyuz spacecraft, which transports U.S. astronauts to and from the space station.
The Research Aircraft Integration Facility can simultaneously check aircraft flight controls, avionics, electronics, and other systems. The only one of its type in NASA is the facility’s speed and enhanced systems integration and preflight checks on research aircraft.
Credit: Wikipedia.
The History of The Armstrong Flight Research Center
NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center history dates back to late 1946 when 13 engineers and technicians from the NACA’s Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory came to Muroc Army Air Base (Now the famous Edwards Air Force Base), in Southern California’s high desert to prepare for the first supersonic research flights by the X-1 rocket plane.
Since then, The Armstrong Flight Research Center has been associated with many significant technological milestones in aviation and space access, such as supersonic and hypersonic flight, supercritical and forward-swept wings, digital fly-by-wire control systems, and the well-known space shuttles.
The Armstrong Flight Research Center was also where the Apollo program’s Lunar Landing Research Vehicle, the wingless lifting bodies, and the famous X-15 rocket plane were tested during the 1960s and ’70s.
