NASA has officially revealed its first all-electric X-plane, the X-57 Maxwell, which is currently being prototyped in several phases of operation at the Armstrong Flight Research Center located inside the Edwards Air Force Base. In addition to being NASA’s first piloted X-plane in two decades, this configuration boasts a skinny, high-aspect ratio wing, designed specially to boost efficiency by reducing drag in flight.
Its electric cruise motors with five-foot diameter propellers on the wingtips are used to recover energy that would otherwise be lost to wingtip vortices. Twelve smaller high-lift motors and propellers on the wing’s leading edge enables the aircraft to take off at standard speeds.
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These smaller motors activate during takeoff and spin the propellers, but deactivate during cruise mode, at which point the propeller blades will fold in to the nacelles, thus reducing drag.
