Langley Research Center: Continuing a Legacy of Aerospace Success
Along the shore of the Chesapeake Bay is the United States' first civilian aeronautics research laboratory. The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics established the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory in Hampton, Virginia, in 1917.
Image above: Aerial view of NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. Credit: NASA
Today, Langley continues this legacy of aerospace success with exciting research in aeronautics and space from understanding the benefits of remotely piloted aircraft, testing innovative materials for tomorrow's spacecrafts, determining how future astronauts will live and work on the Moon, to studying the Earth's atmosphere.
Langley's contributions in aerospace, atmospheric sciences, and technology commercialization are improving everyday life while supporting NASA's Exploration program.
Langley's Legacy Builders
About 3,600 employees work in Langley's wind tunnels, simulators, laboratories, and use experimental aircraft to further enhance the Nation's aerospace research.
Langley-developed complex computer codes have helped improve understanding of aircraft design and streamlined the design process.
With an annual budget of $758 million in 2007, Langley Research Center is a significant contributor to the Agency's Aeronautics, Exploration Systems, Science, and Space Operations missions.
Langley's Areas of Expertise
Langley provides an integrated approach to understanding robust aerospace systems that can perform in all atmospheres, Earth to Mars, and using new, innovative techniques and measurements that offer new scientific knowledge of Earth and other planetary atmospheres.
These unique Langley capabilities have led to the development of revolutionary aerospace, science, and engineering systems that have improved safety and air transportation, supported Space Shuttle missions, and provided a more detailed understanding of atmospheric conditions than traditional weather satellites and instruments.
Langley's Latest Achievements
Working on the Moon
Because the Moon has no atmosphere, extreme temperatures, and fine gray, corrosive soil, working and living there holds new challenges. To prepare for these challenges, NASA experts are determining what it may take to build a base camp on the lunar surface.
Image to right: Langley has fabricated space hardware for testing the launch abort system. Credit: NASA
Langley's team of experts is performing experiments to evaluate such technologies as self-healing materials, radiation protection, and damage tolerance for a planetary surface habitat and airlock unit. Testing of this lunar base camp will help researchers determine the best materials and designs to use to construct future inflatable lunar habitats.
Guiding a New Constellation
With more than 2.5 times the interior volume of its early Apollo predecessors, the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) called Orion will carry NASA astronauts back to the Moon and in the future to Mars. This next generation spacecraft will bring the Vision for Space Exploration to life.
To permit Orion's four to six-member crew to safely escape from the Launch Vehicle, Langley's expertise will be used to design, develop, test, and evaluate the CEV Launch Abort System.
Langley has completed the design and fabrication of a space capsule mock-up that will be used in the first flight test of the launch abort system, presently set for late 2008. To help propel NASA's return to the Moon in the future, the Center will characterize the aerodynamics of the Ares I and V launch vehicles from the analysis phase to the recovery phase.
Langley scientists are gaining new insight about how clouds and airborne particles effect Earth's weather, climate, and air quality with the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO).
Image to right: CALIPSO makes continuous readings of earth’s atmosphere. Credit: NASA
Since mid-June 2006, CALIPSO along with other earth-observing satellites, has collected data that will help improve scientific models and provide