NASA is pulling the plug on its X-57 Maxwell electric airplane experiment without a single flight test on the books, the agency announced June 23, citing a newly discovered problem with the electric propulsion system that poses an “unacceptable” safety risk. According to NASA, the X-57 team will cease all operational activities by the end of September. It will take several months to completely wrap up the project, during which the team plans to publish technical papers detailing its successes and failures.
The X-57 is a modified Tecnam P2006T that NASA has been working to retrofit with an electric propulsion system. NASA launched the program in 2016. Originally, the plan was to replace the aircraft’s two Rotax engines with 14 electric propellers powered by rechargeable lithium-ion batteries and a distributed electric propulsion system.
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