A Milestone for Our Experimental Supersonic Airplane on This Week @NASA – April 14, 2023

A milestone for our experimental supersonic airplane, stretching Orion’s wings before the next flight, and technologies to help fight wildfires … a few of the stories to tell you about – This Week at NASA!

What is said in the film

A milestone for our experimental supersonic airplane. Stretching Orion’s wings before the next flight. And technologies to help fight wildfires. A few of the stories to tell you about, This Week at NASA! The experimental X-59 aircraft being built for our Quesst mission has been outfitted with its lower empennage, or tail assembly.

Teams can now continue final wiring and system checkouts in preparation for integrated ground testing. The X-59 is designed to demonstrate the ability to fly supersonic and produce just a quiet sonic thump, instead of a loud sonic boom. Teams at our Kennedy Space Center recently tested a solar array wing to make sure it extends correctly. Four of the solar arrays will be installed on the Orion spacecraft for the Artemis II mission. Artemis II will be the first Artemis mission to carry astronauts around the Moon and back to Earth.

The ACERO project, led by our Ames Research Center, is using drones and advanced aviation technologies to improve wildfire fighting coordination and operations. ACERO’s airspace management technologies provide situational awareness to help responders avoid conflicts with aircraft operations. Having this situational awareness could also enable them to safely integrate drones into the firefighting effort. Our Lucy spacecraft recently captured its first look at four of the Jupiter Trojan asteroids the mission plans to visit. From more than 330 million miles away, the spacecraft spotted Eurybates, Polymele, Leucus, and Orus.

The asteroids are just single points of light, but the team can still use the imaging data to prepare for the future up-close observations of Lucy’s targets. That’s what’s up this week @NASA. For more on these and other stories, follow us on the web at nasa. gov/twan.

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