This artist’s concept image shows NASA’s first all-electric X-plane, the X-57 Maxwell, flying shortly after takeoff in its final configuration over NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. In this configuration, known as Mod IV, X-57’s smaller high-lift motors will activate along the wing’s leading edge, spinning their propellers and providing lift for takeoff and landing.
Credits: NASA Langley/Advanced Concepts Lab, AMA, Inc
This artist’s concept image shows NASA’s first all-electric X-plane, the X-57 Maxwell, in its final configuration, flying in cruise mode over NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. In Mod IV test flights, X-57’s high-lift motors will deactivate during cruise mode, and their propeller blades will fold in to the nacelles to reduce drag. The motors will reactivate and use centrifugal force to spin the blades back out to provide necessary lift for landing.
Credits: NASA Langley/Advanced Concepts Lab, AMA, Inc
These concept art images depict NASA’s first all-electric X-plane, the X-57 Maxwell, in several phases of operation at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center, located at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
For more than 70 years, this location has been home to many historic X-planes, or experimental aircraft, responsible for expanding the envelope and pushing the limits of aviation – a tradition that NASA is keeping alive through the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate.
The X-57, which is NASA’s first piloted X-plane in two decades, is seen here in its final all-electric configuration, known as Modification IV, or Mod IV. This configuration will feature a skinny, high-aspect ratio wing, designed to boost efficiency by reducing drag in flight, and electric cruise motors with five-foot diameter propellers on the wingtips, to recover energy that would otherwise be lost to wingtip vortices.
Meanwhile, the addition of 12 smaller high-lift motors and propellers on the wing’s leading edge will allow X-57 to be able to take off at standard speeds. These motors will activate during takeoff, spinning the propellers, and will deactivate during cruise mode, at which point the propeller blades will fold in to the nacelles, as seen in two of the above images, reducing drag.
Electric aircraft present a wide array of potential benefits to aviation, including increased efficiency, reduced or eliminated in-flight carbon emissions, and flight that is quieter for communities on the ground. X-57 will help set certification standards as these electric aircraft markets begin to emerge.
Matt Kamlet
NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center