NASA Reaches New Heights in 2015

Estimated reading time: 17 minutes

In a more earthly endeavor, NASA research into flexible, high-temperature space materials may someday improve personal fire shelter systems and help wildland firefighters better survive dangerous wildfires.

NASA also unveiled in 2015 Startup NASA, an initiative that offers start-up companies a diverse portfolio of more than 1,200 patented NASA technologies that range from materials and coatings to sensors, aeronautics technologies, instrumentation and more.

Aeronautics

NASA's long aviation research heritage was marked in 2015 as the agency celebrated the 100th anniversary of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, the organization from which NASA was created in 1958. NASA continued to build on this legacy throughout the year, making significant progress on studies into several technologies aimed at making aviation greener and safer.

NASA’s Environmental Responsible Aviation project concluded demonstrations of eight new technologies to reduce the environmental footprint of aviation through reduced aircraft drag, weight reduction from advanced composite materials, and advanced engines and airframe designs to reduce fuel consumption, emissions and noise. If adopted as an integrated suite, these technologies resulting from an unprecedented six-year effort with industry partners could result in a fuel savings of more than $250 billion by the year 2050. Two of these technologies -- air nozzles on the vertical tail, which could potentially enable the ability to have smaller tails on future aircraft, and special wing coatings, which could reduce bug residue that contributes to drag -- were flown aboard Boeing’s ecoDemonstrator 757 flying laboratory.

NASA continued to push the boundaries of aviation through NASA’s new Convergent Aeronautics Solutions project, exploring the feasibility of novel ideas that would potentially transform aviation as we know it. NASA launched studies of six revolutionary concepts, such as using an aircraft fuselage as a battery for electric propulsion, and equipping an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle with artificial intelligence that could respond to unforeseen situations the same way a human pilot would. 

NASA concluded a multi-year effort with the U.S. Defense Department and industry partners. The goal was to develop and demonstrate new engine health management technologies that can improve performance of future aircraft, including aircraft encountering volcanic ash in flight. NASA also studied potentially hazardous icing conditions at high altitude, flying its DC-8 aircraft into tropical storms as part of the High Ice Water Content campaign.

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