NASA Delivers Futuristic Aircraft Part to Virginia for Structural Testing

Media are invited to view the unloading of a representative test article of a futuristic hybrid wing body aircraft Friday, Dec. 11, at the agency’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.

The large test article, representing the uniquely shaped fuselage cross-section, is made out of a low-weight, damage-tolerant, stitched composite structural concept called Pultruded Rod Stitched Efficient Unitized Structure, or PRSEUS. Langley’s Combined Loads Test System will subject the revolutionary carbon-fiber architecture test article to conditions that simulate loads typically encountered in flight.

The test article will be unloaded from NASA’s Super Guppy aircraft early Friday morning. Media interested in attending must contact Kathy Barnstorff at 757-864-9886 or kathy.barnstorff@nasa.gov<mailto:kathy.barnstorff@nasa.gov>, no later than 4:30 p.m. EST Thursday, Dec. 11, and arrive at the NASA Langley gate by 6:40 a.m. Friday.

Structural testing at Langley is one of eight, large-scale integrated technology demonstrations designed to further the goals of NASA’s Environmentally Responsible Aviation (ERA) project to reduce aircraft fuel consumption, noise levels and emissions through revolutionary design and manufacture of tomorrow’s aircraft.

The hybrid wing body structural technology test article was built for NASA by Boeing Research & Technology in Huntington Beach, California, and assembled in Long Beach. NASA worked with The Boeing Company and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory to develop the PRSEUS structural concept.

For more information about NASA aeronautics research, go to:

http://www.nasa.gov/aeronautics