The first plane to reach Mach 2, or twice the speed of sound, was the Douglas D-558-2 Skyrocket. Civilian test…
Perhaps the most famous of the X-planes is the North American X-15 rocket plane. During its 199 test flights between…
The North American XB-70 Valkyrie was the prototype for a supersonic bomber that was never built, but the two test…
This NASA F-16XL-2 aircraft was used during 1995-96 for the Supersonic Laminar Flow Control project to demonstrate that airflow could…
Taking the leap well beyond supersonic flight, a hypersonic X-43 aircraft reached a record-breaking speed of Mach 9.6, or nearly…
This modified Northrop F-5E jet was used during 2003 for NASA’s Shaped Sonic Boom Demonstration program, a successful effort to…
Originally designed as a supersonic interceptor for the Air Force, the YF-12A was a variant of Lockheed’s A-12 reconnaissance plane.…
With Mach 1 and Mach 2 behind them, NACA engineers sought to expand on their research to fully understand the…
This map shows the oldest light in our universe, as detected with the greatest precision yet by the Planck mission.…
The bulk of the Planck computations were performed on the Cray XE6 supercomputer, named for computer scientist Grace Hopper, at…
