NASA Kills Its X-57 Electric Plane Before It Ever Flies (popsci.com) 43
schwit1 shares a report from Popular Science: NASA said in a conference call with reporters that it would not ever be flying its experimental electric aircraft, the X-57, citing safety concerns that are insurmountable with the time and budget they have for the project. The X-57 program will wind down without the aircraft ever going up into the sky. The project had previously seen challenges. For example, transistor modules in the electrical inverters kept failing and "blowing up" in testing, Sean Clark, the project's principal investigator told Popular Science in January. That problem was solved, Clark said.
The problem that led them to scrap the plan to fly the aircraft stemmed from motors that power the propellers. Clark said today that analysis of the issue is ongoing. "As we got into the detailed analysis and airworthiness assessment of the motors themselves, we found that there were some potential failure modes with the motors mechanically, under flight loads, that we hadn't seen on the ground," he said. "We've got a great design in progress to fix it, it's just [that] it would take too long for us to go through and implement that."
NASA said that the reason behind permanently scrubbing the flight is safety and time. "Unfortunately, we recently discovered a potential failure mode in the propulsion system that we determined to pose an unacceptable risk to the pilot's safety, and the safety of personnel on the ground, during ground tests," Bradley Flick, the director of NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center in California, said in the call. "Mitigation of that failure would take the project well beyond its planned end at the end of this fiscal year, so NASA has decided to end the project on time without taking the vehicle to flight."
The problem that led them to scrap the plan to fly the aircraft stemmed from motors that power the propellers. Clark said today that analysis of the issue is ongoing. "As we got into the detailed analysis and airworthiness assessment of the motors themselves, we found that there were some potential failure modes with the motors mechanically, under flight loads, that we hadn't seen on the ground," he said. "We've got a great design in progress to fix it, it's just [that] it would take too long for us to go through and implement that."
NASA said that the reason behind permanently scrubbing the flight is safety and time. "Unfortunately, we recently discovered a potential failure mode in the propulsion system that we determined to pose an unacceptable risk to the pilot's safety, and the safety of personnel on the ground, during ground tests," Bradley Flick, the director of NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center in California, said in the call. "Mitigation of that failure would take the project well beyond its planned end at the end of this fiscal year, so NASA has decided to end the project on time without taking the vehicle to flight."
NASA isn't what it used to be (Score:2, Interesting)
Its outsourced most of its rocket launches and a lot of its space probe development and now they can't even manage to get an electric plane to work because of transistors (is it 1960?) and motors. I mean fucking seriously?? The battery tech might be tricky but a solar powered electric plane (solar impulse) circumnavigated the planet 15 years ago!
Perhaps its time NASA management were given the boot and people with a clue hired instead.
Re:NASA isn't what it used to be (Score:4, Interesting)
The battery tech might be tricky but a solar powered electric plane (solar impulse) circumnavigated the planet 15 years ago!
And the Titan submarine dived 13 times (6 times in 2021, 7 in 2022) to the bottom of the ocean to see the Titanic. Apparently, laws of physics were not aware that it was enough reason to deem that it safe. Maybe someone should have told them.
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That sub used uncertified materials for its pressure hull. Electric motors OTOH have been a solved problem for the best part of 150 years and the drive electronics about 40 years. HTH.
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They were having issues because they were trying to develop new, ultra efficient electronics to make better use of the available energy in batteries.
We have made progress in the last few years, with GaN based FETs allowing for super efficient/small chargers and the like, but scaling that up to handle enough energy to power an aircraft is proving tricky.
Re:NASA isn't what it used to be (Score:4, Informative)
" but scaling that up to handle enough energy to power an aircraft is proving tricky."
Maybe at NASA. Rolls royce managed to fly a proper high speed electric single seater 2 years ago. Perhaps NASA should have given them a call.
Re:NASA isn't what it used to be (Score:5, Insightful)
NASA did a research project. Their project didn't pan out. Now it's no longer needed because other people's research projects did, so it's time to pull the plug rather than spending more money on it.
This is an expected and acceptable result.
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^ This.. so much this.. My biggest take-away from this article is "Holy sh!t a government project that pulled the plug at the right time instead of continuing to use it as a money pit!"
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You misunderstood. We have power electronics that can power an electric plane already, there are several models in existence from different manufacturers and even hobbyists.
NASA was trying to make more efficient power electronics. 5% more efficient means 5% more range. Maybe even more if they can also offer weight reductions.
There's also the issue of recharge time. The electronics to handle high voltage systems (800V and up) in electric cars and chargers are relatively new, which is why most EVs are 400V. T
Transistor FET Nonsense (Score:2)
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Well, yes, we've known how to make electric motors for a long time, but that doesn't mean there haven't been advances in the past 150 years, or that that there aren't advances to be made still. Electric car manufacturers are funding advances in electric motors right now.
It's not as mature a technology as you'd think because we're using them in applications where we dont' have a lot of experience with them. In a way we're at a point in the development of electric motors for vehicles where we were for combus
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Yeah, wonder why?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: NASA isn't what it used to be (Score:3)
They always outsourced their rockets. The Saturn V was built by Boeing primarily. The STS was built by the precursor to ULA. It just happens that their current primary fleet is built by SpaceX, with a bit of ULA thrown in on the side.
Correct link (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe an editor can fix the first link of the article (pointing to the South Korean article at the moment). Here is the right one: https://www.popsci.com/technology/nasa-cancels-x-57-flight/ [popsci.com]
What was the X-57 budget? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What was the X-57 budget? (Score:5, Informative)
"For example, the X-57 was estimated to cost $40 million but has experienced more than $47 million in cost overruns and an almost 3-year schedule delay."
https://www.militaryaerospace.com/commercial-aerospace/article/14294060/nasas-electric-plane-tech-is-coming-in-for-a-late-bumpy-landing
So scrap it and put it out to tender on a fixed-price budget.
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So scrap it and put it out to tender on a fixed-price budget.
Reminds me of a saying: There's never enough money to do it right, but always enough to do it again.
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Which seems limiting, except they generally make great training aircraft for people to learn to fly on. Avgas is expensive (it's something like $7-10/litre in a lot of places, you probably get a gallon for that price in the US). Plus, as we all know, Avgas currently has lead in it, so it has the
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Have you no respect for ART?!
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From the 2023 NASA appropriations request. [nasa.gov]
$289 million for Integrated Aviation Systems to develop Electrified Powertrain Flight Demonstrations and a Sustainable
Flight Demonstrator that will pave the way to reducing aviation emissions. Also supports the first flights of the X-59
Low-Boom Flight Demonstrator and X-57 all-electric aircraft.
Probably ok (Score:3)
A lot was learned during the design and construction, and there are also other electric planes nowadays that had solved some of the issues. I don't know the details of this project but it might be fine to drop it at this point and do something else with all the new knowledge.
Yep! That's the Apollo spirit, NASA! (Score:4, Funny)
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NASA is primarily a research organization, and some (really, a lot of) research doesn't pan out the way you thought it would. There are numerous things NASA has tried that haven't panned out as practical. They learn many things from these projects, but sometimes in research, the most important lesson can be "this isn't going to work".
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Is that actually a P68? (Score:3)
I find it strange that the program should be so expensive, seen as the plane appears to be a modification of a 1970's design: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
and I think most of the cost of the original plane is the powerplants. I guess the cost overruns were mainly in engineering time. So, if the aim of the project was to maintain the skills of the design team, it has accomplished its goal. Otherwise other companies are already working on similar projects and making good progress.
X-Plane to nowhere (Score:2)
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Re: X-Plane to nowhere (Score:1)
The age of miracles is not passed (Score:1)
NASA cans a project because it will overrun the budget. Is that a first for ANY government agency?
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Probably true. NASA has been on a tear for nearly a decade now encouraging private sector space flight. If not for NASA's funding and sharing of technical knowledge and facilities, there's no way we'd be where we are today. SpaceX, in particular, has benefited mightily from its collaboration with NASA, but they are by no means the only one.
NASA decided... (Score:2)
NASA decided to pull the plug on the electric plane before it even got a charge. ??
JoshK.
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NASA decided to pull the plug on the electric plane before it even got a charge. ??
JoshK.
+1 Funny...if I had Mod points
silver bullet (Score:2)
Another silver bullet turns out to be fool's gold.
Looks poorly engineered (Score:2)
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Decisions, decisions...