The Lockheed Martin X-56 is an American
modular
Broadly speaking, modularity is the degree to which a system's components may be separated and recombined, often with the benefit of flexibility and variety in use. The concept of modularity is used primarily to reduce complexity by breaking a sy ...
unmanned aerial vehicle
An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controller ...
that is being designed to explore
High-Altitude Long Endurance
Atmospheric satellite (United States usage, abbreviated atmosat) or pseudo-satellite (British usage) is a marketing term for an aircraft that operates in the atmosphere at high altitudes for extended periods of time, in order to provide servic ...
(HALE) flight technologies for use in future military unmanned
reconnaissance aircraft
A reconnaissance aircraft (colloquially, a spy plane) is a military aircraft designed or adapted to perform aerial reconnaissance with roles including collection of imagery intelligence (including using photography), signals intelligence, as ...
.
Design and development
Designed by Lockheed Martin's Advanced Development Programs, known informally as the
Skunk Works
Skunk Works is an official pseudonym for Lockheed Martin's Advanced Development Programs (ADP), formerly called Lockheed Advanced Development Projects. It is responsible for a number of aircraft designs, beginning with the Lockheed P-38 Lightn ...
, the aircraft was first revealed by
''Aviation Week'', and is intended to research active
flutter suppression and gust-load alleviation technologies. The X-56A is based on Lockheed's earlier UAV work, showing influence from the
Polecat
Polecat is a common name for several mustelid species in the order Carnivora and subfamilies Ictonychinae and Mustelinae. Polecats do not form a single taxonomic rank (i.e. clade). The name is applied to several species with broad similarities t ...
,
Sentinel
Sentinel may refer to:
Places Mountains
* Mount Sentinel, a mountain next to the University of Montana in Missoula, Montana
* Sentinel Buttress, a volcanic crag on James Ross Island, Antarctica
* Sentinel Dome, a naturally occurring grani ...
and
DarkStar UAVs. The program calls for the construction of two -long
fuselage
The fuselage (; from the French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an engine as well, although in some amphibious aircraft t ...
s and a wingspan of 27.5 ft, with four sets of wings being constructed for flight testing.
Operational history
The X-56A first flew on 26 July 2013,
flying from
Edwards Air Force Base
Edwards Air Force Base (AFB) is a United States Air Force installation in California. Most of the base sits in Kern County, but its eastern end is in San Bernardino County and a southern arm is in Los Angeles County. The hub of the base is E ...
; twenty flights were to be flown on behalf of the
Air Force Research Laboratory
The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) is a scientific research organization operated by the United States Air Force Materiel Command dedicated to leading the discovery, development, and integration of aerospace warfighting technologies, pl ...
before the aircraft would be handed over to
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
for further testing.
The first X-56A unmanned aircraft was severely damaged in a crash shortly after takeoff from the dry lakebed at
Edwards AFB, California, on 19 November 2015, on its first flexible-wing flight to test active flutter suppression. The aircraft had previously made 16 flights with stiff wings to prove its operating envelope.
The second X-56A unmanned aircraft flew for the first time on 9 April 2015 while under operation by NASA. The aircraft flew eight flights with the stiff wings to clear its operating envelope. The vehicle then completed its first flight with the highly flexible wings on 31 August 2017.
One instability mode, body freedom flutter, was shown to be actively suppressed by the digital
flight control
A conventional fixed-wing aircraft flight control system consists of flight control surfaces, the respective cockpit controls, connecting linkages, and the necessary operating mechanisms to control an aircraft's direction in flight. Aircraft e ...
at , within its normal
flight envelope
In aerodynamics, the flight envelope, service envelope, or performance envelope of an aircraft or spacecraft refers to the capabilities of a design in terms of airspeed and load factor or atmospheric density, often simplified to altitude. The t ...
.
Slender, flexible and lighter low-drag wings would be enabled by flutter suppression.
NASA’s X-56B unmanned air vehicle was destroyed in a crash on 9 July 2021 after suffering an “anomaly in flight”.
Specifications (X-56A)
See also
References
External links
Lockheed Martin X-56 page
''Lockheed Martin X-56 (2012): Active Flutter Suppression'' Aviation Week I& Space Technology
{{US experimental aircraft
X-056
2010s United States experimental aircraft
Unmanned aerial vehicles of the United States
Twinjets
Blended wing body
NASA aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 2013