NASA’s X 57 Maxwell Powers Up

NASA’s X-57 Maxwell all electric aircraft has power! With the successful installation of two 400-pound lithium-ion battery packs in the cabin of the plane. The X-57 project is the agency’s first all-experimental electric aircraft, and an early part of NASA’s work to develop sustainable aviation solutions. Instead of aviation fuel, it will use commercial, rechargeable, lithium-ion batteries for the energy its motors need for flight. The X-57 project team repeatedly tested the batteries to ensure they can safely power the aircraft for an entire flight, and designed custom, lightweight cases to keep the batteries secure.

[@rklauco]

Thanks for doing this valuable testing and research.

[@nightmareevan0]

Rest in peace, Max... :(

[@ericlotze7724]

Has there been any work on Fuel Cell Aircraft?

[@Daddo22]

Each HFCEV is BEV with added fuel cell and hydrogen storage (the battery is usually smaller). If you have technology for BEV aircraft you can replace some battery capacity with HFC & storage. This project is about electric propulsion in flight, fuel cell would be an unnecessary complication (can be a part of sister project if need be). HFCEVs are incredibly less efficient than equivalent BEVs (The losses in production, cooling, transport of hydrogen and the FC mean that you loose more than half the energy you started with even in the best case scenario, while on charging & discharging battery you lose

[@sebsmith5100]

Does it still have 12 propellers planned?

[@arthurlunar7835]

yes, this is modification II i think, there is going to have modification III that will have the engines on the side of wings and modification IV that will be 12

[@luziapestana8210]

It's the future. Great job. Peace and love to everyone.

[@flexairz]

The future? Why? Batteries have 50 times less energy than liquid fuel and pollute way more, no room for range and payload.

[@dissaid]

😎✌️☕️

[@engineerahmed7248]

Optimization arrives at same sol. My design looks precisely like this. Good they abandoned wingtip propulsion idea, as if one motor fails guaranteed death due to severe moment But Y add complication and another failure point of retracts. 5ft dia soft C!30 style wheels remove need for even suspension system. Put aside fancy accent & diversity, honestly it is just a brushless RC plane without even RC. Keeping it simple isn't a bad thing though

[@Shazbat5]

How would you know the reliability is equal?

[@engineerahmed7248]

@@Shazbat5 Gd Q. RC pilots do destructive testing (crash) & design evolution. Keeping it simple, yet near optimum is the robust sol. More systems in series more likely to fail due to each system failure probablity mutiplication. Redundent Systems in parallel & testing to emulated conditions bring reliability.

[@defeatSpace]

Why not do the real thing instead of wasting that effort on KSP?

[@engineerahmed7248]

@@defeatSpace ?

[@Stikibits]

More science and less war, please NASA.

[@defeatSpace]

Hwat do you think rockets are for?

[@FIREBRAND38]

I must have missed where NASA fought in a war.

[@bmanna495]

@@FIREBRAND38 NASA does anything that flies, and the best flying tech always goes to the military first, but this can be applied to everything

[@FIREBRAND38]

@@bmanna495 Thanks for chiming in, Mr Helper. That's a nonsensical argument that ignores reality. So NASA develops an airfoil design and they're "making war"? Seriously? So, sorry to challenge your "expertise" but the Shaft-Driven Lift Fan on the F-35B was developed by Lockheed and Rolls Royce without any NASA involvement. But you knew that.

[@bishop51807]

@@defeatSpace making sure we atomize the other side of the planet?

[@PistonAvatarGuy]

Full of batteries, no room for anything else, and still wont have a useful range.

[@superhakujin]

You get that this is a tech demonstrator / data gathering rig, right? This machine is strictly for testing different configurations of propulsion, wing, and battery and gathering data to provide to actual airplane manufacturers. Were you expecting NASA to sell you an airplane? Because if so, I have a rocket you can buy...

[@PistonAvatarGuy]

@@superhakujin The point is that it's not even going to lead to anything useful being produced, so there's no reason for its existence.

[@superhakujin]

@@PistonAvatarGuy You're gonna be real mad when you find out how NACA airfoils were developed...

[@PistonAvatarGuy]

@@superhakujin That comment doesn't make any sense... at all. I'm not criticizing NASA (or its predecessor), I think that NASA should be doing more to advance aircraft and space flight technology, my point is that NO amount of development is going to make electric aircraft viable. It's ridiculous, people like you seem to think that we can just pick any technology that we want and make it viable with enough development, but that's not how things work. If we could do that, why not just skip vehicles altogether and go for Star Trek transporter technology?

[@wolfedan3]

F EVs

[@ericlotze7724]

Eh, in car applications yeah, but for small aircraft (island hoppers etc), the lack of a need for fuel infrastructure (electric lines are way easier than an atmospheric storage tank full of JP-5) and low maintenance do make BEVs quite nice. Also the fact that they may not be used as much as a “Daily Driver” Car, and that many have removable/hot swappable batteries, means charging is even less of an issue. Also not as many will be made (most likely, assuming no industry wide adoption (ie even for long haul) ), so the impact is relatively low compared to cars. (Although i would prefer the use of Sodium Ion batteries etch

[@ericlotze7724]

But i still prefer gas turbines on Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF) (Sustainable Biofuels and Power-to-Fuels fuel), and Fuel Cells on Hydrogen or DME (Dimethyl Ether) etc.

[@ericlotze7724]

Also just *Investing in north America High Speed Rail So we need Less Planes*

[@ryanp6999]

@@ericlotze7724 Three great points, Eric.