WASHINGTON (The Thursday Times) — NASA has unveiled a new crewed experimental aircraft, the X-70 Fractal, saying it will test flight-control and manoeuvring technology in ways never before demonstrated in a piloted plane.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said the agency expects its first flight under the NASA banner within the next two years. The aircraft was shown on Wednesday at a summit at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
NASA says the X-70 will weigh about 4,500 kilograms at takeoff, cruise at Mach 0.75, or three-quarters of the speed of sound, and reach 45,000 feet, with a range of more than 2,700 kilometres. It can carry up to about 900 kilograms of experiments inside and outside the aircraft, and its modular design lets teams swap them quickly.
The picture NASA released is a dark silhouette, and the agency gave no cost in its announcement. The plane joins a line of X-planes that includes the Bell X-1, which first broke the sound barrier in 1947, the X-15 hypersonic research aircraft and today’s X-59 quiet supersonic demonstrator.
