Aurora Wins NASA Contract for X-plane Candidate | Aviation International News

Aurora Wins NASA Contract for X-plane Candidate

The D8 demonstrates efficiencies in commercial aircraft.

By Kerry Lynch • Editor, AIN monthly magazine

September 21, 2016

NASA awarded a $2.9 million contract to Aurora Flight Sciences for continued work on the D8 aircraft, a candidate for the agency’s X-plane program that is designed to demonstrate technologies that could result in well over 50 percent efficiency gains in commercial aircraft.

NASA earlier this year announced ambitious plans to resurrect its X-plane program in its quest to research advanced aeronautics. NASA Administrator Dan Bolden estimated the program would involve five X-planes over the next decade that will flight-test new technologies and systems as well as novel aircraft and engine configurations. The first of those planes to participate, X-57 or “Maxwell,” is a general aviation-size aircraft that will test new propulsion technologies and efficiencies for private aircraft.

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