Meet NASA’s New Electric Plane: ‘Maxwell’

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Meet NASA’s New Electric Plane: ‘Maxwell’

The space agency is flying slowly toward a carbon-free future.

On Friday NASA announced that the space agency is ready to test a new and experimental all-electric plane, the X-57, or "Maxwell." It will sport 14 electrically-powered propellers integrated into a specially-designed new kind of wing. According to NASA's administrator, Charles Bolden, the aircraft also marks "the return of piloted X-planes to NASA's research capabilities."

"[The] general aviation-sized X-57 will take the first step in opening a new era of aviation," Bolden said in the release published on the agency's website.

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The researchers who named the plane "Maxwell" did so to honor pioneering 19th-century physicist James Clerk Maxwell, whose groundbreaking theories of electromagnetic radiation unified magnetism, electricity, and light.

The X-57's radical design chucks classic shapes for a long, narrow wing comprised of 12 electric motors on the forward side that will control the plane's lift-off and landing ability. At the tip of each wing will be a more substantial motor that ensures the plane stays aloft. By distributing the power this way, engineers believe they can diminish the vehicle's normal need for energy to power cruising along at 175 m.p.h. Full battery power will mean that carbon emissions won't be an issue with the "Maxwell" either.

NASA believes it is looking at future benefits to passengers with experimental aircraft like the X-57. According to the agency's release, "Energy efficiency at cruise altitude using X-57 technology could benefit travelers by reducing flight times, fuel usage, as well as reducing overall operational costs for small aircraft by as much as 40 percent."

Noise pollution may be substantially reduced as well, which would be a huge bonus in electric aircraft for anyone who has ever lived near a major airport's main flight paths—eventually. The New York Times reported that in a speech given to the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics on Friday, Charles Bolden cautioned 747-sized electric aircraft aren't on the radar yet. In the foreseeable future, the technology in the X-57 will only be suitable for smaller planes.

Still, the Times report made Bolden's position clear regarding NASA's long-term goals in aviation. The X-57 and future X-plane projects are the agency's "moonshot for aviation."

The dream of a quiet, emissions-free flight from New York to London may be much closer to reality than we realize.