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![]() Aerial view of the Langley Research Center in 2011 | |
Agency overview | |
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Formed | 1917 |
Preceding agency |
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Jurisdiction | U.S. Federal Government |
Headquarters | Hampton, Virginia, U.S. |
Employees | 1,821 (2017) |
Agency executives |
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Parent agency | NASA |
Website | www |
Map | |
![]() Map of NASA Langley Research Center | |
Footnotes | |
[1] [2] [3] |
The Langley Research Center (LaRC or NASA Langley), located in Hampton, Virginia near the Chesapeake Bay front of Langley Air Force Base, is the oldest of NASA's field centers. [1] LaRC has focused primarily on aeronautical research but has also tested space hardware such as the Apollo Lunar Module. In addition, many of the earliest high-profile space missions were planned and designed on-site. Langley was also considered a potential site for NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center prior to the eventual selection of Houston, Texas. [4]
Established in 1917 by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the research center devotes two-thirds of its programs to aeronautics and the rest to space. LaRC researchers use more than 40 wind tunnels to study and improve aircraft and spacecraft safety, performance, and efficiency. Between 1958 and 1963, when NASA (the successor agency to NACA) started Project Mercury, LaRC served as the main office of the Space Task Group.
In September 2019, after previously serving as associate director and deputy director, Clayton P. Turner was appointed director of NASA Langley. [3]
After U.S.-German relations had deteriorated from neutral to hostile around 1916, the prospect of U.S. war entry became possible. On February 15, 1917, the newly established Aviation Week warned that the U.S. military aviation capability was less than what was operating in the European war. [5] President Woodrow Wilson sent Jerome Hunsaker to Europe to investigate, and Hunsaker's report prompted Wilson to command the creation of the nation's first aeronautics laboratory, which became NASA Langley. [6]
In 1917, less than three years after it was created, the NACA established the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory on Langley Field. Both Langley Field and the Langley Laboratory are named after aviation pioneer Samuel Pierpont Langley. [7] The Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps had established a base there earlier that same year. The first research facilities were in place and aeronautical research was started by 1920. Initially, the laboratory included four researchers and 11 technicians. [8]
Langley Field and NACA began parallel growth as air power proved its utility during World War I. The center was originally established to explore the field of aerodynamic research involving airframe and propulsion engine design and performance. In 1934 the world's largest wind tunnel was constructed at Langley Field with a 30-by-60-foot (9.1 m × 18.3 m) test section; it was large enough to test full-scale aircraft. [9] [10] It remained the world's largest wind tunnel until the 1940s, when a 40-by-80-foot (12 m × 24 m) tunnel was built at NASA's Ames Research Center in California. [11]
The West Area Computers were African American, female mathematicians who worked as human computers at the Langley Research Center from 1943 through 1958. [12] The West Computers were originally subject to Virginia's Jim Crow laws and got their name because they worked at Langley's West Area, while the white mathematicians worked in the East section. [13]
Early in 1945, the center expanded to include rocket research, leading to the establishment of a flight station at Wallops Island, Virginia. A further expansion of the research program permitted Langley Research Center to orbit payloads, starting with NASA's Explorer 9 balloon satellite in mid-February 1961. As rocket research grew, aeronautics research continued to expand and played an important part when subsonic flight was advanced and supersonic and hypersonic flight were introduced.[ citation needed ]
Langley Research Center claims many historic firsts, some of which have proven to be revolutionary scientific breakthroughs. These accomplishments include: Development of the concept of research aircraft leading to supersonic flight, the world's first transonic wind tunnel, training the first crews of astronauts, the Lunar Landing Facility which provides the simulation of lunar gravity, and the Viking program for Mars exploration. [14] The center also developed standards for the grooving of aircraft runways based on a previous British design used at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. [15] Grooved runways reduce aquaplaning which permits better grip by aircraft tires in heavy rain. This grooving is now the international standard for all runways around the world.
Langley was also a contender for the site of NASA Mission Control, prior to the eventual selection of Houston, due to Langley's prominence with NASA at the time, the large existing aerospace industry already present in the Hampton Roads region, and the proximity to Washington, D.C. The selection of Houston actually took many higher-ups at Langley by surprise and caused some lingering controversy in the surrounding area over the loss and transfer of so many jobs to Houston. Though they had lost out on the Manned Spacecraft Center, Langley still played an important role in conducting research and training during the Apollo Program. [4]
Langley Research Center performs critical research on aeronautics, including wake vortex behavior, fixed-wing aircraft, rotary wing aircraft, aviation safety, human factors and aerospace engineering. LaRC supported the design and testing of the hypersonic X-43, which achieved a world speed record of Mach 9.6 (11,800 km/h; 7,310 mph). LaRC assisted the NTSB in the investigation of the crash of American Airlines Flight 587. [16] [17]
Work began in July 2011 to remove the 1940s era 16 feet (4.9 m) transonic wind tunnel. The facility supported development and propulsion integration research for many military aircraft including all fighters since 1960 (F-14, F-15, F-16, F-18 and the Joint Strike Fighter) but had been inactive since 2004. [18] Langley retained transonic wind tunnel testing capabilities facilities in the National Transonic Facility, a high pressure, cryogenically cooled 8.2 feet (2.5 m) closed loop wind tunnel. [19]
LaRC also houses a large collection of various inexpensive plastic reformation machines. These machines are used in the freeform fabrication department for faster timing, better precision, and larger quantities of low-cost toys, model, and industrial plastic parts. The fabrication of plastic parts is similar to the EBF³ process but with a thin, grated heating element as its melting apparatus. Both are run by CAD data and deal with various freeform fabrication of raw materials.
Since the start of Project Gemini, Langley was a center for training of rendezvous in space. In 1965, Langley opened the Lunar Landing Research Facility for simulations of Moon landings with a mock Apollo Lunar Module suspended from a gantry over a simulated lunar landscape. There was experimental work on some Lunar Landing Research Vehicles (LLRV).
Langley Research Center supported NASA's mission with the designing of a spacecraft for a landing on Mars. (see the Mars Exploration Rover.)
Langley Research Center conducts Earth science research to support NASA's mission. [20]
LRC scientists and engineers have won the Collier Trophy 5 times, listed below.
The Whitcomb area rule, named after NACA engineer Richard Whitcomb and also called the transonic area rule, is a design procedure used to reduce an aircraft's drag at transonic speeds which occur between about Mach 0.75 and 1.2. For supersonic speeds a different procedure called the supersonic area rule, developed by NACA aerodynamicist Robert Jones, is used.
The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) was a United States federal agency that was founded on March 3, 1915, to undertake, promote, and institutionalize aeronautical research. On October 1, 1958, the agency was dissolved and its assets and personnel were transferred to the newly created National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). NACA is an initialism, i.e., pronounced as individual letters, rather than as a whole word.
Richard Travis Whitcomb was an American aeronautical engineer who was noted for his contributions to the science of aerodynamics.
The NASA Neil A. Armstrong Flight Research Center (AFRC) is an aeronautical research center operated by NASA. Its primary campus is located inside Edwards Air Force Base in California and is considered NASA's premier site for aeronautical research. AFRC operates some of the most advanced aircraft in the world and is known for many aviation firsts, including supporting the first crewed airplane to exceed the speed of sound in level flight, highest speed by a crewed, powered aircraft, the first pure digital fly-by-wire aircraft, and many others. AFRC operates a second site next to Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, known as Building 703, once the former Rockwell International/North American Aviation production facility. There, AFRC houses and operates several of NASA's Science Mission Directorate aircraft including SOFIA, a DC-8 Flying Laboratory, a Gulfstream C-20A UAVSAR and ER-2 High Altitude Platform. As of 2023, Bradley Flick is the center's director.
Robert Rowe Gilruth was an American aerospace engineer and an aviation/space pioneer who was the first director of NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center, later renamed the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center.
Robert T. Jones,, was an American aerodynamicist and aeronautical engineer for NACA and later NASA. He was known at NASA as "one of the premier aeronautical engineers of the twentieth century".
Abraham "Abe" Silverstein was an American engineer who played an important part in the United States space program. He was a longtime manager at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). He was instrumental in the planning of the Apollo, Ranger, Mariner, Surveyor, and Voyager missions, and named the Apollo program after the Greek and Roman God.
The Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel, located at the NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Federal Airfield, Mountain View, California, United States, is a research facility used extensively to design and test new generations of aircraft, both commercial and military, as well as NASA space vehicles, including the Space Shuttle. The facility was completed in 1955 and is one of five facilities created after the 1949 Unitary Plan Act supporting aeronautics research.
The Full-Scale Tunnel was a wind tunnel at NASA's Langley Research Center. It was a National Historic Landmark.
The Eight-Foot High Speed Tunnel, also known as Eight-Foot Transonic Tunnel, was a wind tunnel located in Building 641 of NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. It was a National Historic Landmark.
Edgar Maurice Cortright was a scientist and engineer, and senior official at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the United States. His most prominent positions during his career were Director of NASA's Langley Research Center, and Chairman of the Apollo 13 Review Board which investigated the explosion that occurred during the Apollo 13 spaceflight in 1970.
There are NASA facilities across the United States and around the world. NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC provides overall guidance and political leadership to the agency. There are 10 NASA field centers, which provide leadership for and execution of NASA's work. All other facilities fall under the leadership of at least one of these field centers. Some facilities serve more than one application for historic or administrative reasons. NASA has used or supported various observatories and telescopes, and an example of this is the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility. In 2013 a NASA Office of the Inspector General's (OIG) Report recommended a Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC) style organization to consolidate NASA's little used facilities. The OIG determined at least 33 of NASA's 155 facilities were underutilized.
Paul Richard Hill (1909–1990) was a mid–twentieth-century American aerodynamicist. He was a leading research and development engineer and manager for NASA and its predecessor, NACA between 1939 and 1970, retiring as Associate Chief, Applied Materials and Physics Division at the NASA Langley Research Center. He is arguably most widely known today as the author of Unconventional Flying Objects: a Scientific Analysis.
As the coalition of Bay Areas counties predicted when it lobbied for the creation of Moffett Federal Airfield in the late 1920s, the base's research program and facilities catalyzed the development of numerous private technology and aerospace corporations, among them Lockheed Martin and the Hiller Aircraft Corporation.
John Stack (1906–1972) was an aerospace engineer. He won the Collier trophy, in 1947 and 1951.
Norman L. Crabill is a retired NASA engineer. An employee of NASA since its creation in 1958, Crabill was originally employed by its predecessor National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, or NACA. Over the course of his nearly 40-year career, he was recognized for numerous achievements. Crabill has written 43 publications. He was inducted into the Virginia Aviation Hall of Fame in 2003.
Kitty Wingfield Joyner was an American electrical engineer with the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), and then with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) upon its replacement of NACA in 1958. She was the first woman to graduate from the University of Virginia's engineering program in 1939, receiving the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award upon graduation. When she was hired by NACA the same year, she became the first woman engineer at the organization, eventually rising to the title of Branch Head and managing several of its wind tunnels. Her work contributed to research on aeronautics, supersonic flight, airfoils, and aircraft design standards.
Mary Jackson was an American mathematician and aerospace engineer at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), which in 1958 was succeeded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). She worked at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, for most of her career. She started as a computer at the segregated West Area Computing division in 1951. In 1958, after taking engineering classes, she became NASA's first black female engineer.
The Propeller Research Tunnel (PRT) was the first full-scale wind tunnel at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) Langley Research Center, and the third at the facility. It was in use between 1927 and 1950 and was instrumental in the drag reduction research of early American aeronautics. In 1929, NACA was awarded its first Collier Trophy for the NACA cowling which was tested and developed using the Propeller Research Tunnel.
NASA Langley, founded in 1917, is the Nation's first civilian aeronautical research facility and NASA's oldest field center.
Clayton Turner is the Director of NASA's Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia. Turner has served the agency for more than 29 years. He has held several roles at NASA Langley, including systems engineer, Chief Engineer, Engineering Director, Associate Center Director, and Deputy Center Director.