NASA Archives

On October 5, 1993, Langley's F-16XL High Lift jet was rolled out with a dynamic yellow and black paint job for Aero-Dynamic Flow Studies in High Speed Research.

Aerospace & Defense

Only 2 F-16XLs Were Ever Built — One Flew Alongside an SR-71 Blackbird to Help NASA Measure Sonic Booms

General Dynamics stretched the F-16's fuselage about 56 inches, removed its ventral fins, and swapped its wing for a cranked-arrow delta with no horizontal...

Caleb LarsonSeptember 25, 2026

An artist's conception of the X-43A Hypersonic Experimental Vehicle, or "Hyper-X" in flight. The X-43A was developed to flight test a dual-mode ramjet/scramjet propulsion system at speeds from Mach 7 up to Mach 10 (7 to 10 times the speed of sound, which varies with temperature and altitude).

Aerospace & Defense

At 7,346 MPH, the X-43A Crossed Atlantic Distance in 25 Minutes — 22 Years Later, Nobody Has Built Anything Faster That Can Touch It

NASA built three X-43As under its Hyper-X program for about $230 million, and none was meant to be recovered. A B-52 carried each one...

Jack BuckbySeptember 25, 2026

B-2 Spirit Bomber Destroyed Creative Commons Photo

Aerospace & Defense

Water in three sensors wrecked the B-2 Spirit of Kansas, tail 89-0127, and the US Air Force priced that Guam crash at $1,407,006,920, calling it the most expensive aircraft crash on record, after the bomber rotated too slow at Andersen on February 23, 2008

The B-2 Spirit of Kansas, 89-0127, crashed at Andersen on February 23, 2008, after three wet sensors skewed air data. It rotated near 132...

Georgia GilholySeptember 23, 2026

Aerospace & Defense

Beijing to Shanghai In Just 1800 Seconds: China Is Ready to Test Its New Supersonic TMS-10 Plane

China's new TMS-10’s demonstrator now uses a three-surface configuration to address sonic boom challenges. That includes a forward canard, main wing, and rear T-tail.

Harrison KassSeptember 21, 2026

Mars Probe Photo. Image Credit: Banana Nano.

Aerospace & Defense

Mars Climate Orbiter ran on pound-force seconds while NASA’s software expected newtons and over nine months that 4.45-to-one error put it 35 miles above Mars instead of 85 so on 23 September 1999 the $125 million spacecraft vanished and never called home

Lockheed sent pound-force. JPL expected newtons. Mars Climate Orbiter flew 35 miles above Mars instead of 85 and vanished on 23 September 1999.

Harrison KassSeptember 21, 2026

Aerospace & Defense

People think Earth dies when the Sun becomes a red giant in five billion years — the more likely end is a billion years from now, when a star already 30 percent brighter than at birth pushes CO₂ too low for C3 plants, then a moist greenhouse strips the oceans of hydrogen and leaves a sterile Venus

The popular ending is fire. The actual ending is a slow loss of air that plants can breathe, then of water that can come...

Harrison KassSeptember 20, 2026

An air to air left underside view of an F-16XL aircraft. The aircraft is armed with two wing tip mounted AIM-9 Sidewinder and four fuselage mounted AIM-7 Sparrow missiles along with 12 500-pound bombs.

Aerospace & Defense

Only Two F-16XL Fighters Were Built. They Lost to the F-15E in 1984, Flew for NASA to 1999, and Retired in 2009. A Video Game Is Flying Them Again.

On September 16 the combat flight game War Thunder added the F-16XL as the headline aircraft of a new event, a jet only two...

Jack BuckbySeptember 18, 2026

Venera 13 Venus Probe Creative Commons Photo

Aerospace & Defense

Venus Takes 243 Earth Days to Turn Once on Its Axis and 224.7 Earth Days to Circle the Sun. Its Equator Creeps Along at About 4 Miles per Hour — Slower Than a Person Walks — While the Planet Itself Races Through Space at 78,000 Miles per Hour.

Venus is the closest thing to a twin Earth has, and almost nothing about how it moves makes sense. It turns once every 243...

Harrison KassSeptember 16, 2026

Aerospace & Defense

Russia Landed Venera 12 on Venus on December 21, 1978 and Venera 11 on December 25. Both Survived 870 Degrees Fahrenheit and Roughly 90 Atmospheres of Pressure. Neither Returned a Single Photograph, Because the Lens Caps Failed to Eject on Both.

The descent through Venus's atmosphere would have wrecked exposed optics — sulfuric acid clouds, carbon dioxide, and enormous swings in pressure and temperature —...

Harrison KassSeptember 14, 2026

Aerospace & Defense

Over 4,000 Missiles Failed to Hit a Single US Air Force Mach 3.2 SR-71 Blackbird. Speed Was the Only Way to Survive as It Had No Weapons to Fire Back

The SR-71 Blackbird did not dodge missiles so much as it made the intercept mathematically unaffordable, arriving and departing faster than the defense could...

Harry J. KazianisSeptember 12, 2026

19FortyFive

All posts tagged "NASA"

Aerospace & Defense

Only 2 F-16XLs Were Ever Built — One Flew Alongside an SR-71 Blackbird to Help NASA Measure Sonic Booms

Aerospace & Defense

At 7,346 MPH, the X-43A Crossed Atlantic Distance in 25 Minutes — 22 Years Later, Nobody Has Built Anything Faster That Can Touch It

Aerospace & Defense

Water in three sensors wrecked the B-2 Spirit of Kansas, tail 89-0127, and the US Air Force priced that Guam crash at $1,407,006,920, calling it the most expensive aircraft crash on record, after the bomber rotated too slow at Andersen on February 23, 2008

Aerospace & Defense

Beijing to Shanghai In Just 1800 Seconds: China Is Ready to Test Its New Supersonic TMS-10 Plane

Aerospace & Defense

Mars Climate Orbiter ran on pound-force seconds while NASA’s software expected newtons and over nine months that 4.45-to-one error put it 35 miles above Mars instead of 85 so on 23 September 1999 the $125 million spacecraft vanished and never called home

Aerospace & Defense

Aerospace & Defense

Only Two F-16XL Fighters Were Built. They Lost to the F-15E in 1984, Flew for NASA to 1999, and Retired in 2009. A Video Game Is Flying Them Again.

Aerospace & Defense

Venus Takes 243 Earth Days to Turn Once on Its Axis and 224.7 Earth Days to Circle the Sun. Its Equator Creeps Along at About 4 Miles per Hour — Slower Than a Person Walks — While the Planet Itself Races Through Space at 78,000 Miles per Hour.

Aerospace & Defense

Russia Landed Venera 12 on Venus on December 21, 1978 and Venera 11 on December 25. Both Survived 870 Degrees Fahrenheit and Roughly 90 Atmospheres of Pressure. Neither Returned a Single Photograph, Because the Lens Caps Failed to Eject on Both.

Aerospace & Defense

Over 4,000 Missiles Failed to Hit a Single US Air Force Mach 3.2 SR-71 Blackbird. Speed Was the Only Way to Survive as It Had No Weapons to Fire Back

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