Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate
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The Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD) is one of five mission directorates within
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...
, the other four being the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, the Space Operations Mission Directorate, the Science Mission Directorate, and the Space Technology Mission Directorate. The ARMD is responsible for NASA's aeronautical research, which benefits the
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,
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, and
general aviation General aviation (GA) is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as all civil aviation aircraft operations with the exception of commercial air transport or aerial work, which is defined as specialized aviation services ...
sectors. The current NASA associate administrator heading ARMD is Robert A. Pearce who has held the position since 2019. ARMD is involved in the creation of the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen). A 2014 audit by the
NASA Office of Inspector General The NASA Office of Inspector General (NASA OIG or OIG) is the inspector general office in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the space agency of the United States. The OIG's stated mission is to "prevent and detect crime, fraud, wa ...
reported that ARMD "solicits input from industry, academia, and other Federal agencies regarding research needs and...uses this information to develop its research plans", and concluded that the directorate supported "advancement of the nation's civil aeronautics research and technology objectives consistent with the National Plan" established in 2006. ARMD performs its aeronautics research at four NASA facilities:
Ames Research Center The Ames Research Center (ARC), also known as NASA Ames, is a major NASA research center at Moffett Federal Airfield in California's Silicon Valley. It was founded in 1939 as the second National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) labo ...
and Armstrong Flight Research Center in California,
Glenn Research Center NASA John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field is a NASA center within the cities of Brook Park and Cleveland between Cleveland Hopkins International Airport and the Rocky River Reservation of Cleveland Metroparks, with a subsidiary facilit ...
in Ohio, and Langley Research Center in Virginia.


Funding

According to a 2012 report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, NASA's aeronautics budget declined from over $1 billion in 2000 to $570 million in 2010, while shrinking from approximately seven percent of NASA's total budget in 2000 to around three percent in 2010. Its staffing decreased by approximately four percent between 2006 and 2010. The result was the elimination of much flight research, hindering the advance of technologies and causing some research projects to collapse. In addition, the ambition of flight research projects decreased with respect to technical complexity, risk, and benefit to the nation. This decreased ambition was attributed to a risk-averse culture within NASA's aeronautics programs, as well as to budget reductions. As of 2011, 56% of NASA's aeronautics budget went to fundamental research, 25% to integrated systems research, and 14% to facility maintenance. Its budget breakdown by NASA Center was 32% to Langley, 25% to Glenn, 23% to Ames, 13% to Dryden (Armstrong), and 7% to NASA Headquarters. By expense category, 56% of the budget was dedicated to labor costs, 13% to research announcements, and 30% to procurement. For fiscal 2019, its budget request for aeronautics research was cut by 3.3% to $634 million after four years between $640 and $660 million before being cut by 2.5% to $609 million from fiscal 2020. The supersonic demonstrator for low
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will get $88 million: after a preliminary Lockheed Martin design was reviewed in June 2017, a contract should be awarded in early April 2018 to design and build the single-seat, single-engine craft before its critical design review scheduled for fiscal 2019, and flying in January 2021. $5 million will go for hypersonics research. $101 million will be spent on other flight research including the X-57 Maxwell to demonstrate a three times lower energy usage with electric aircraft in 2019. The seeks $231 million for 2019, targeting a hybrid airliner turbine-electric propulsion system focused on
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motors. The
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should test a megawatt powertrain in fiscal 2019 before the 2.6-megawatt ingestion system.
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’s Mach 0.78 Truss- Braced wing concept High-speed
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testing is planned for fiscal 2019. The Airspace Operations and Safety Program ($91 million in 2019) includes to support urban air mobility in national airspace: automated trajectory negotiation and management flights are planned for January 2019, followed by dynamic scheduling and congestion management.


Programs

The ARMD oversees four mission programs: * The Advanced Air Vehicles Program (AAVP), which develops technologies to improve vehicle performance. AAVP projects include research into aeronautics,
composite material A composite material (also called a composition material or shortened to composite, which is the common name) is a material which is produced from two or more constituent materials. These constituent materials have notably dissimilar chemical or ...
s, supersonic technology, and vertical lift technology. * The Airspace Operations and Safety Program (AOSP), which works with the FAA to develop technologies to support NextGen and improve navigation automation and safety. * The Integrated Aviation Systems Program (IASP), which includes the Environmentally Responsible Aviation (ERA) project and the integration of unmanned aircraft systems into the
National Airspace System The National Airspace System (NAS) is the airspace, navigation facilities and airports of the United States along with their associated information, services, rules, regulations, policies, procedures, personnel and equipment. It includes components ...
, and conducts
flight test Flight testing is a branch of aeronautical engineering that develops specialist equipment required for testing aircraft behaviour and systems. Instrumentation systems are developed using proprietary transducers and data acquisition systems. D ...
operations. * The Transformative Aeronautics Concepts Program (TACP), which creates early-stage concepts, develops computational and experimental tools, and awards research grants to industry and university teams.


Advanced Air Transportation Technology project

The Passive Aeroelastic Tailored (PAT) wing was designed for more structural efficiency by a team of the ARMD, the
University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
and Boeing-owned
Aurora Flight Sciences Aurora Flight Sciences is an American aviation and aeronautics research subsidiary of Boeing which primarily specializes in the design and construction of special-purpose Unmanned aerial vehicles. Aurora has been established for 20+ years and th ...
. A long, 29% scale of a
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-like wing was built by Aurora in Columbus, Mississippi, with a conventional configuration: two
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s and 58 ribs. The skin thickness varies with the load from inboard tapering to at the tip. To aligns fibers with the load,
tow Towing is coupling two or more objects together so that they may be pulled by a designated power source or sources. The towing source may be a motorized land vehicle, vessel, animal, or human, and the load being anything that can be pulled. Th ...
-steered laminates curve along the wing span unlike current composites with 0°, ±45° and ±90° laid down and cut plies. Being more flexible but with controlled stiffness, gust loads and flutter are passively suppressed. Loads tests began in September 2018 and went up to 85% of the design limit in October, halted by load oscillations. It could be coupled with active gust load alleviation from NASA Langley and the X-56A flexible wing for active flutter-suppression.


See also

* ecoDemonstrator * NASA GL-10 Greased Lightning * NASA X-57 Maxwell


References

{{Reflist NASA groups, organizations, and centers Aeronautics organizations Aviation and the environment Research and development in the United States