NASA Aeronautics

Official National Aeronautics and Space Administration Website

  • NASA Armstrong Advances Flight Research and Innovation in 2025

    In 2025, NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, advanced work across aeronautics, Earth science, exploration technologies, and emerging aviation systems, reinforcing its role as one of the agency’s primary test sites for aeronautics research. From early concept evaluations to full flight test campaigns, teams enhanced measurement tools, refined safety systems, and generated data […]

  • NASA, Boeing Test How to Improve Performance of Longer, Narrower Aircraft Wings 

    The airliner you board in the future could look a lot different from today’s, with longer, thinner wings that provide a smoother ride while saving fuel. Those wings would be a revolutionary design for commercial aircraft, but like any breakthrough technology, they come with their own development challenges – which experts from NASA and Boeing […]

  • 2025 in Review: Highlights from NASA in Silicon Valley 

    Editor’s Note: This article was updated on Friday, Dec. 19, 2025, to clarify the research done by ATM-X and ACERO. NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley continued to make strides in research, technology, engineering, science, and innovation this past year. Join us as we take a look back at some of the highlights […]

  • NASA Ignites New Golden Age of Exploration, Innovation in 2025

    With a second Trump Administration at the helm in 2025, NASA marked significant progress toward the Artemis II test flight early next year, which is the first crewed mission around the Moon in more than 50 years, as well as built upon its momentum toward a human return to the lunar surface in preparation to […]

  • NASA Works with Boeing, Other Collaborators Toward More Efficient Global Flights 

    Picture this: You’re just about done with a transoceanic flight, and the tracker in your seat-back screen shows you approaching your destination airport. And then … you notice your plane is moving away. Pretty far away. You approach again and again, only to realize you’re on a long, circling loop that can last an hour […]

  • NASA Demonstrates Safer Skies for Future Urban Air Travel 

    NASA is helping shape the future of urban air travel with a new simulation that will manage how electric air taxis and drones can successfully operate within busy areas.   The demonstration, held at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley earlier this year, focused on a system called the Strategic Deconfliction Simulation, which helps […]

  • New NASA Sensor Goes Hunting for Critical Minerals

    Called AVIRIS-5, it’s the latest in a long line of sensors pioneered by NASA JPL to survey Earth, the Moon, and other worlds. Cradled in the nose of a high-altitude research airplane, a new NASA sensor has taken to the skies to help geoscientists map rocks hosting lithium and other critical minerals on Earth’s surface […]

  • NASA’s Quesst Mission Marks X-59’s Historic First Flight

    NASA’s X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft took off for its historic first flight on Oct. 28, 2025, at 11:14 a.m. EDT from Lockheed Martin Skunk Works in Palmdale, California. The one-of-a-kind aircraft flew for 67 minutes before landing and taxiing to NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. NASA test pilot Nils Larson flew […]

  • NASA’s Quesst Mission Marks X-59’s Historic First Flight

    NASA’s X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft took off for its historic first flight on Oct. 28 at 11:14 a.m. EDT from Lockheed Martin Skunk Works in Palmdale, California. The one-of-a-kind aircraft flew for 67 minutes before landing and taxiing to NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. NASA test pilot Nils Larson flew the […]

  • NASA’s X-59 Completes First Flight, Prepares for More Flight Testing

    After years of design, development, and testing, NASA’s X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft took to the skies for the first time Oct. 28, marking a historic moment for the field of aeronautics research and the agency’s Quesst mission. The X-59, designed to fly at supersonic speeds and reduce the sound of loud sonic booms to […]