HAMPTON, Va. — NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton unveiled its new Flight Dynamics Research Facility Friday, marking the opening of the first new wind tunnel at the center in more than 40 years.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman joined other dignitaries — including Virginia's two U.S. senators and Lt. Gov. Ghazala Hashmi — for the ribbon cutting of the $57 million, 140-foot-tall facility, which features a unique vertical wind tunnel that replaces two older models that will be decommissioned at neighboring Langley Air Force Base.
It comes four years after the facility broke ground.
A propeller from one of the old tunnels is on display at the new facility.
"You don't want to have so much of your budget maintaining the past that comes with the expense of the mission of today and tomorrow," Isaacman said of the opening. "This is a perfect example of doing the right thing consolidating a handful of capabilities that we have into a brand new facility."
Before the ceremony, Isaacman tossed a scaled-down version of the Artemis mission's Orion Space Capsule into the tunnel to demonstrate how it works.
"Our goal is to make sure we don't have a bad day and so the more we can test in these tunnels to understand the dynamics of these vehicles the more we keep our crew and that is number one priority," said Dr. Trina Dyal, NASA Langley Research Center's Director.
While the Orion Space Capsule has already been proven capable in both Artemis missions so far, other missions still in development will begin crucial testing at the facility later this year.
Among them is the DAVINCI probe, which aims to launch toward Venus in 2031.
Dr. Hayden Dean, an engineer working on the project, said the wind tunnel will better prepare the probe for the planet's intense atmosphere because its capability is much stronger than previous tunnels where some testing has already occurred.
"As I've been looking at a lot of that data, we realize there's some gaps. There's some things that we need to learn more about," Dean said.
The facility will also support research into air taxis — vehicles designed to fly passengers to local destinations. Ben Simmons, a Langley engineer, said the wind tunnel is essential to ensuring those vehicles can fly safely.
"We need to understand all those effects across the flight envelope to be able to develop a safe flight control system," Simmons said.
Flight Dynamics Research Facility tell News 3 that center projects will likely kick into higher gear in September and October.
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