Mar 5 2009
From The Space Library
NASA and the U.S. Air Force announced the designation of three university and industry partners to serve as national hypersonic science centers. The centers’ task would be to promote research in air-breathing propulsion, materials and structures, and boundary-layer control for aircraft able to travel at Mach 5. NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission in Washington, DC, and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory’s Office of Scientific Research in Arlington, Virginia, had selected the partners from more than 60 contenders. The University of Virginia in Charlottesville would host the National Center for Hypersonic Combined Cycle Propulsion and would lead a team specializing in air-breathing propulsion research; Texas A&M University in College Station would be the National Center for Hypersonic Laminar-Turbulent Transition and would specialize in boundary layer-control research; and Teledyne Scientific and Imaging LLC in Thousand Oaks, California, would host the National Hypersonic Science Center for Hypersonic Materials and Structures. James L. Pittman, Principal Investigator for the Hypersonics Project of NASA’s Fundamental Aeronautics Program at NASA’s LaRC in Hampton, Virginia, remarked that NASA’s joint investment with the Air Force of US$30 million over five years would “support basic science and applied research that improves our understanding of hypersonic flight.” Pittman stated that the establishment of the centers signaled a major commitment to advancing foundational hypersonic research and to training the next generation of hypersonic researchers.
NASA, “NASA and Air Force Designate National Hypersonic Science Centers,” news release 09-050, 5 March 2009.
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