NASA is building an airplane that can change shape during super-fast flight

Engineers from the United States Space Agency and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology developed an aircraft wing shapeshifting technology that does not have moving control surfaces that are found in all aircraft today.

The wing consists of tiny, identical elements, thanks to which it can change shape during flight, thanks to which you can control the flight of the aircraft in every aspect. The new system allows deformation of the entire wing or part of it.

It is possible thanks to the use of a mixture of rigid (airgel) and flexible (rubber-like) materials in its structure.

Thousands of tiny components are bolted together in a triangle shape to create an open, lightweight mesh frame with meta-material technology.

The elements are covered with a thin layer of polymer material.

This concept reduces the weight of the wings and allows them to be quickly adapted to different types of flying vehicles.It should be emphasized here that the lattice frame of the new wing has a density of 5.6 kilograms per cubic meter.

By comparison, rubber has a density of around 1,500 kilograms per cubic meter.

This shows that scientists at NASA and MIT have managed to obtain a meta-material that is 300 times lighter than rubber, but at the same time is as flexible and stiff as it is.

The shapeshifter wing has already undergone its first successful wind tunnel test at the Langley Research Center.

Scientists explain that thanks to their technology it will now be possible to create any wing geometry perfectly suited to the type and purpose of the aircraft. The new technology for the production of ultra-efficient wings from NASA and MIT can also be used in the production of car bodies, bridges, transmitting antennas and blades for

wind turbines.

Americans believe that the technology, which is easy to produce, durable and cheap to operate, will allow us to change our reality beyond recognition in terms of ecology and traveling around the world, but that's not all.

The latest project of the Americans is also an airplane powered by cryogenic hydrogen fuel.

To start with, engineers at the University of Illinois propose to install lightweight cryogenic hydrogen systems in small airplanes, and later also in large passenger machines.

Such flying vehicles will have a somewhat futuristic appearance, as you can see from the concept above. The principle of such a propulsion is quite simple, but its effectiveness depends on a new generation of materials.

Scientists are working on them: “In such installations, the chemical energy of hydrogen is converted into electricity via a group of fuel cells that drive an ultra-efficient electric propulsion system.

The low temperature requirements of the hydrogen system also enable the use of superconductivity or lossless energy transmission in engine propulsion systems, such as in magnetic resonance, "said Phillip Ansell of the University of Illinois. NASA is investing in these types of projects because it wants to finally

make aviation greener.

It is predicted that in the following years the number of airplanes in the sky will increase rapidly, because people more and more often travel around the world, and as we know, airplanes are the largest polluters of the atmosphere, next to ships.

If we don't do anything about it, climate change will go faster and faster. Here is the Maveric, the plane straight out of sci-fi movies.

We could see this phenomenal concept for the first time in its full glory in February this year, right after the Singapore aviation fair.

Experts from the aviation world hailed it as one of the most ambitious Airbus projects in recent years, and although we are talking about the concept here, the European company has been conducting advanced works on the first prototype of such a machine for 3 years.

Airbus engineers see great potential in this type of design.

Travel in the 20s and 30s of the 21st century is to take place at supersonic or even hypersonic speeds.

If carriers want to stay in business, they will have to offer ultra-fast travel on such machines. The futuristic Maveric is the future of fast and green air travel.

The streamlined shape of the machine helps save fuel and develops much higher speeds than traditional machines, and the luxurious and modern interior means that passengers will not even feel that they have flown from one corner of the world to the other. The Airbus ensures that the Maveric will not end up in the basket.

The plane is expected to appear in full scale in the first half of the 1920s. So far, engineers are successfully testing its tiny prototype, as you can see in the attached footage.

The test model used by the Airbus was 2 meters long, 3.2 meters high, and its wingspan was 6.6 meters. The company presented animations at the exhibition in Singapore in which we can see its futuristic shapes and interior.

Large multimedia screens are available on board.

They also replaced her.

Admittedly, this is what airplanes should look like now, i.e. comfortable for passengers and offering super-fast travel from one end of the world to the other. If we look at the design of the Maveric aircraft, the Northrop Grumman X-47B will immediately come to mind.

Probably new passenger planes will be built in the future on the basis of proven projects obtained from military drones, made in the flying wing technology.

The Blended Wing Body project is expected to provide as much as 20 percent savings on fuel and servicing costs.