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The NASA X-57 Maxwell is an experimental aircraft being developed by NASA, intended to demonstrate technology to reduce fuel use, emissions, and noise. Modified from a Tecnam P2006T, the X-57 will be an electric aircraft, with 14 electric motors driving propellers mounted on the wing leading edges. The X-57 project was publicly revealed by NASA Administrator Charles Bolden on 16 June 2016 in a keynote speech to the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) at its Aviation 2016 exposition.
Design and development
The design of the aircraft grew out of a NASA project called Leading Edge Asynchronous Propeller Technology.
The X-57, NASA's first X-plane in over a decade, is part of NASA's New Aviation Horizons initiative, which will also produce up to five larger-scale aircraft. The X-57 will be built by the agency's Scalable Convergent Electric Propulsion Technology Operations Research (SCEPTOR) project, over a four-year development period at Armstrong Flight Research Center, California, with a first flight planned for 2017.
All 14 electric motors will be used during takeoff and landing, with only the outer two used during cruise. The additional airflow over the wings created by the additional motors generates greater lift, allowing for a narrower wing. The aircraft, which seats two, will have a range of approximately 100 miles (160 km) and a maximum flight time of approximately one hour. The X-57's designers hope to reduce by five-fold the energy necessary to fly a light aircraft at 175 miles per hour (282 km/h).
