Axiom received a nearly $230 million task order to develop the AxEMU suit, which Artemis astronauts will test out on the lunar surface. The task order is part of a contract with NASA worth up to $3.5 billion that also includes Collins Aerospace, which earlier this year abandoned efforts to develop extravehicular activity (EVA) spacesuits under its own $100 million task order.

NASA’s current EVA suits are more than four decades old, and recent malfunctions have forced the space agency to postpone several spacewalks.

“We have broken the mold,” said Matt Ondler, president of Axiom Space. “The Axiom Space-Prada partnership has set a new foundational model for cross-industry collaboration, further expanding what’s possible in commercial space.”

Artemis III will land a crew at the lunar south pole, so Axiom’s suit is designed to withstand extreme temperatures in regions devoid of sunlight. Its portable life support system will keep astronauts safe on spacewalks for up to eight hours, the company says.

Axiom says its design is more flexible, efficient, and safe than NASA’s existing suits. The AxEMU boots, for example, are built to withstand rough terrain and the freezing cold, while the helmet and visor covering are designed to improve astronauts’ vision of their surroundings. The suit can accommodate crew of nearly all body types.

Several AxEMU systems are redundant, including an onboard diagnostic system that tracks the wearer’s vital signs. Astronauts can control its temperature using a carbon dioxide scrubber and cooling system. A 4G/LTE communications system allows them to keep in touch with the rest of the crew during excursions.

The outer suit material, which was designed in partnership with Prada, will reflect heat and protect against small projectiles like dust.

“I’m very proud of the result we’re showing today, which is just the first step in a long-term collaboration with Axiom Space,” said Lorenzo Bertelli, chief marketing officer and head of corporate social responsibility for Prada Group. “We’ve shared our expertise on high-performance materials, features, and sewing techniques, and we learned a lot.”

According to Axiom, the suit will be designed for missions on the moon as well as in low-Earth orbit. That could be enticing for non-NASA customers that have different missions in mind.

The firm on Wednesday said the AxEMU suit is close to the final stage of development, with a critical design review expected next year. Already, it has endured underwater, reduced gravity, and pressurized simulation testing at NASA facilities. In the coming months, the space agency will perform crewed underwater testing at its Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory and gauge the suit’s fit with the prototype lunar rover the Artemis astronauts will drive.

Simultaneously, Axiom is developing the Axiom Station: one of several commercial space outposts that could replace the International Space Station (ISS) when NASA destroys it at the end of the decade. The firm has already completed three NASA-approved private astronaut missions to the ISS and is scheduled for a fourth in Spring 2025.

NASA’s largest commercial partner, SpaceX, meanwhile, has developed its own EVA spacesuit, which debuted during the first civilian spacewalk on September’s Polaris Dawn mission. The company claims it will one day manufacture thousands of suits for future astronauts to build and explore on Mars.

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NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) have agreed to facilitate missions to the moon using a crewed lunar rover designed, built, and operated by Japan. The enclosed and pressurized rover is designed to serve as a mobile habitat and laboratory for human personnel.

In exchange, NASA will set aside space for two JAXA astronauts on future moon landing missions under its Artemis program. Artemis is essentially the successor to the Apollo program, with the aim of initiating a new generation of lunar exploration.

NASA expects the rover, which will give crews more time to work on the lunar surface, to land on the moon during the Artemis VII mission, which is tentatively scheduled for 2030 or 2031. The agency anticipates it will have a 10-year lifespan and be used on subsequent Artemis missions. Japan will design, develop, and operate the rover, while NASA will provide launch and delivery to the moon.

“America no longer will walk on the Moon alone,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “With this new rover, we will uncover groundbreaking discoveries on the lunar surface that will benefit humanity and inspire the Artemis generation.”

Nelson and Masahito Moriyama, Japan’s minister of education, culture, sports, science and technology, signed the agreement Tuesday at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

The following day, President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced “a shared goal for a Japanese national to be the first non-American astronaut to land on the moon on a future Artemis mission, assuming important benchmarks are achieved.”

A crewed, pressurized rover called the Lunar Cruiser has been under development by JAXA and Toyota since 2020. The vehicle uses hydrogen fuel cell technology found in the automaker’s electric vehicles. It could transport astronauts across the lunar surface for up to 30 days and cruise for up to 6,200 miles, providing ample time to perform research and conduct experiments. The partners are further developing systems to automate most of the driving and navigation.

The Lunar Cruiser’s tires are made from metal, and an onboard fuel cell uses solar energy and stored water to produce hydrogen and oxygen, generating electricity. The rover can also convert electricity stored in its battery pack back into hydrogen and oxygen.

According to NASA, two astronauts will use the vehicle to traverse the moon’s south pole during Artemis VII. Toyota expects it to be ready for launch by 2029.

“The pressurized rover will be a powerful contribution to the overall Artemis architecture as Japan and the U.S. go hand in hand with international and industry partners to the lunar surface and beyond,” said JAXA president Hiroshi Yamakawa.

The lunar rover arrangement falls under a framework agreement signed between the U.S. and Japan in 2023, which signifies the countries’ “mutual interest in peaceful exploration.”

The agreement covers a wide range of activities from science to exploration and will include Japanese participation in NASA’s Dragonfly mission, which will study Saturn’s largest moon, called Titan, using a dual-quadcopter lander. JAXA will also contribute to the development of NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. In return, NASA will help develop JAXA’s SOLAR-C sun-observing satellite.

The U.S. space agency will allocate crew space for a JAXA astronaut on a future Artemis mission to deploy Gateway, a lunar orbital space station. An agreement between the two calls for Japan to supply the space station’s environmental control and life support systems and cargo transportation.

Artemis I—an uncrewed lunar flight test of NASA’s Space Launch System and Orion capsule—splashed down in December 2022 after a 25-day, 1.4 million-mile jaunt around the moon and back. However, issues unearthed during the flight have delayed Artemis II, a crewed lunar flyby, and Artemis III, intended to be the first crewed lunar landing in half a century, to September 2025 and 2026, respectively.

Artemis III astronauts would become the first humans to visit the moon’s south pole, where they will collect lunar samples, images, and other data. NASA describes the mission as “one of the most complex undertakings of engineering and human ingenuity in the history of deep space exploration.”

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New photos released Monday by the Houston-based aerospace company and NASA show Odysseus’ descent and confirm its location, days after the Nova-C lander completed its seven-day, 600,000-mile journey, softly landing in the South Pole region of the moon around 6:23 p.m. EST Thursday. 

While Odysseus landed successfully, flight controllers said Friday that as it descended a foot was caught in the surface, tipping it over on its side.

• READ MORE: ‘Odysseus’ Lunar Lander Alive, Well… But Likely Not Upright

“Odysseus continues to communicate with flight controllers in Nova Control from the lunar surface,” Intuitive Machines said in an IM-1 mission update Monday. “After understanding the end-to-end communication requirements, Odysseus sent images from the lunar surface of its vertical descent to its Malapert A landing site, representing the [farthest] south any vehicle has been able to land on the Moon and establish communication with ground controllers.

• READ MORE: The ‘Odysseus’ Has Landed

“As part of Odysseus’ descent on to the lunar surface, Intuitive Machines hazard relative navigation algorithms detected nine safe landing sites within the targeted South Pole region, which is an area that contains permanently shadowed regions that may be rich in resources, including water ice that could be used for future propulsion and life support on the moon.”

Two days after landing, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft photographed Odysseus’ landing site as it passed over it at an altitude of about 56 miles.

• READ MORE: IM-1 Private Lunar Lander Mission Transmits First Space Images

“Odysseus marks the first successful soft landing of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative and the first time that new NASA science instruments and technology demonstrations are operating on the moon in more than 50 years,” NASA said.

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The IM-1 mission, which is poised to be the first U.S. lunar landing in more than 50 years, is headed to the South Pole region of the moon as part of NASA’s commercial lunar payload services (CLPS) initiative and Artemis campaign. 

Less than two hours before its scheduled launch, however, a private rocket company announced it would be pushed back. “Standing down from tonight’s attempt due to off-nominal methane temperatures prior to stepping into methane load,” SpaceX said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The new launch window of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket liftoff is now rescheduled for 1:05 a.m. EST Thursday at Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the company said. According to SpaceX, teams will begin loading the lunar lander with cryogenic methane and oxygen on the launch pad ahead of stepping into propellant load for Falcon 9 approximately two and a half hours before liftoff.

The mission is set to prepare NASA for Artemis, a series of launches that will attempt to return U.S. astronauts to the moon as soon as 2025. On board Intuitive Machine’s Nova-C robotic lander, called “Odysseus,” are six NASA payloads that will conduct research to better understand the lunar environment. 

“The payloads will collect data on how the plume of engine gases interacts with the moon’s surface and kicks up lunar dust, investigate radio astronomy and space weather interactions with the lunar surface, test precision landing technologies, and measure the quantity of liquid propellant in Nova-C propellant tanks in the zero gravity of space,” NASA said. “The Nova-C lander will also carry a retroreflector array that will contribute to a network of location markers on the moon that will be used as a position marker for decades to come.”

• READ MORE: First U.S. Moonshot in Decades Will Fall Short—What It Means

The launch of IM-1 comes little more than a month after the failed attempt of Astrobotic’s Peregrine Mission One to become the first U.S. CLPS spacecraft to reach the moon’s surface. Hours after its launch on January 8, a propulsion anomaly derailed the mission. Ten days after launch, the Peregrine spacecraft burned up during a controlled reentry over the South Pacific. On board Peregrine were more than 20 payloads, including NASA instruments meant to study the lunar surface. 

• READ MORE: ‘Propulsion Anomaly’ Reported After Launch of First U.S. Commercial Lunar Lander

NASA will air live coverage of the IM-1 mission launch Thursday, beginning its broadcast at 12:20 a.m. EST. It may be viewed on a variety of platforms, including NASA+, NASA TV, and the agency’s website. SpaceX will also provide a live webcast of the mission beginning about 45 minutes before liftoff on X @SpaceX.

The Nova-C lander is expected to land on the moon February 22. 

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United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) Vulcan rocket launched Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander on January 8 from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Hours into the mission, however, a “propulsion anomaly” was reported that cut the flight short of its original target to make a lunar landing attempt on February 23.

“After analysis and recommendations from NASA and the space community, Astrobotic determined the best option for minimizing risk and ensuring responsible disposal of the spacecraft would be to maintain Peregrine’s trajectory toward Earth, where it burned up upon reentry,” NASA said Friday.

The spacecraft made a controlled reentry over the South Pacific 10 days and 13 hours after it launched.

• READ MORE: ‘Propulsion Anomaly’ Reported After Launch of First U.S. Commercial Lunar Lander

“Peregrine Mission One has concluded,” Astrobotic said Friday  in a message on X, formerly Twitter. “We look to the future and our next mission to the moon, Griffin Mission One. All of the hard-earned experience from the past 10 days in space along with the preceding years of designing, building and testing Peregrine will directly inform Griffin and our future missions.”

Despite the failure to land on the moon as planned, NASA said four out of five of its payloads on Peregrine were able to power on in flight and collect data. Those experiments included its Linear Energy Transfer Spectrometer (LETS), Near-Infrared Volatile Spectrometer System (NIRVSS), Neutron Spectrometer System (NSS), and Peregrine Ion-Trap Mass Spectrometer (PITMS). Its fifth experiment, a laser retroreflector array, is a passive instrument and would have only been able to operate on the lunar surface.

• READ MORE: First U.S. Moonshot in Decades Will Fall Short—What It Means 

The Peregrine mission was an opportunity to set benchmarks and test instruments in space, said Nicola Fox, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.

“The data collected in flight sets the stage for understanding how some of our instruments may behave in the harsh environment of space when some of the duplicates fly on future CLPS flights,” Fox said.

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During a press conference Tuesday afternoon, NASA officials announced that the Artemis II and Artemis III moon missions—planned for this year and next, respectively—will be pushed to September 2025 and September 2026. Artemis II is expected to put NASA astronauts in lunar orbit, while Artemis III aims to land them on the moon, where they would become the first humans to visit the lunar south pole.

The Artemis program is effectively the descendant of the Apollo missions, which concluded decades earlier. But unlike Apollo, it represents a shift toward leveraging private sector companies, such as SpaceX and Blue Origin, for key vehicle components.

Despite speculation that the Artemis lunar landing could be pushed to Artemis IV—which NASA affirmed is still on track for 2028—the space agency said no changes will be made to the flight plan of either mission, and no flights will be added. However, for a variety of reasons, many related to safety, both Artemis II and III will fly later than initially planned.

As Jim Free, associate administrator of NASA, put it: “We’ll launch when we’re ready.”

Safety First

Attending Tuesday’s press conference were Free, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, Deputy Associate Administrator of the Moon to Mars program Amit Kshatriya, and Associate Administrator of the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate Catherine Koerner. The four officials—plus representatives from NASA industry partners such as SpaceX and Lockheed Martin—fielded questions from media about why the missions were delayed.

According to NASA, several issues discovered during Artemis I, which carried the agency’s reusable Orion capsule around the moon in 2022, are causing delays to Artemis II. These center around the spacecraft’s heat shield, abort capabilities, and electrical systems and could pose threats its occupants.

Kshatriya said heat shield erosion during Artemis I caused pieces of the thermal cover to fly off—an outcome not predicted by NASA. The agency said it discovered the issue while rewatching the watershed flight and has spent “the bulk of 2023” working to understand its root cause.

Orion is also dealing with a design flaw in the motor valve circuitry for its life support system, which was tested and approved for Artemis II but not the subsequent mission. The spacecraft’s digital motor controllers are hampering its carbon dioxide scrubber, which absorbs the gas to provide breathable air for astronauts. Artemis I did not test any life support systems, but they will be added to Artemis II along with a new abort system.

Further, NASA found a deficiency in Orion’s batteries. The issue won’t hinder the spacecraft’s ability to separate from the booster in an emergency, but the agency said it could cause unexpected effects.

“We’re still very early in that investigation,” said Kshatriya.

The effort to replace and retest the faulty components will be tremendous, NASA said, but essential for Orion to fly on Artemis II and beyond. Nelson said the revised mission timeline will “give Artemis teams more time to work through the challenges.”

Even more work will need to be done for Artemis III, which NASA said will introduce several new components and systems: a human landing system (HLS), docking module, propellant transfer system, and spacesuits to name a few. Kshatriya said the timeline for that mission remains “very aggressive.”

Free said NASA expects the development of SpaceX’s Starship HLS and Axiom’s next-generation spacesuits will take additional time. The agency has also yet to solve the issue of propellant transfer, or in-flight refilling, which involves a spacecraft drawing fuel from another spacecraft or stationary outpost.

A SpaceX representative attending the media briefing estimated the company will need to complete ten refueling missions before Starship HLS lands on the moon, which the company hopes will happen in 2025. 

The representative added that SpaceX’s Starship—the largest and most powerful rocket ever built—is working toward a NASA tipping point demo to explore propellant transfer between tanks. The company does not consider this a propellant test mission, but the maneuver will be studied during Starship’s third orbital test flight, expected in February.

When asked, the representative did not provide a minimum number of Starship orbital test flights needed before a lunar landing. But the propellant transfer flight, whenever that happens, will be the one that matters most.

“We’ve been building the machine to build the machine,” the representative said.

Free added that development of NASA’s Gateway space station—which is expected to fly on a future Artemis mission—and the Block 1B variant of its Space Launch System (SLS) also necessitated delays. 

But NASA officials said the larger gaps between the missions will allow the agency to incorporate more lessons from previous flights into each increasingly complex Artemis project. SpaceX and Blue Origin, for example, will be required to develop cargo variants of their human lunar landers as part of their obligations for Artemis IV, NASA said Tuesday.

A Clearer Outlook?

When one questioner mentioned the space industry’s doubts about the new timeline—arising from previous Artemis delays—Free explained what makes NASA so confident.

He said the agency now has a better understanding of Orion and other Artemis vehicles. The bigger reassurance, however, is the industry’s support: Free said 11 industry and contractor partners attended Tuesday’s press conference, and all of them contributed to the revised mission schedule.

Kshatriya pointed to the SLS core stage delivery to NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility as a sign of readiness, adding that the spacecraft’s booster segments are ready to stack and the upper stage is “ready to go.” Further, NASA’s European Space Agency (ESA) partners will ship a service model to the agency in a few months, he said.

Nelson, meanwhile, dispelled fears that China could beat the U.S. to a moon landing. He expressed confidence that the rival superpower would not reach the lunar surface before Artemis III. But with the delay, the two competitors’ schedules are undoubtedly more aligned.

Nelson also pointed to the agency’s recent progress, most notably a partnership with the United Arab Emirates to build the airlock for Gateway and the launch of Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) missions.

The NASA administrator emphasized that Artemis will only be the beginning of the new era of American spaceflight. The agency is also developing its Moon to Mars program, which Nelson said will rely on international partners to land an American on Mars. Reaching the moon, he said, will be the first step toward missions to the red planet in the future.

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Hours into the mission, however, a “propulsion anomaly” potentially threatened the success of the lander reaching the moon’s surface as planned.

United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) Vulcan rocket launched Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander at 2:18 a.m. EST from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

• READ MORE: What Did the U.S. Just Put in Orbit?

“The first CLPS launch has sent payloads on their way to the moon—a giant leap for humanity as we prepare to return to the lunar surface for the first time in over half a century,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement. “These high-risk missions will not only conduct new science at the moon, but they are supporting a growing commercial space economy while showing the strength of American technology and innovation. We have so much science to learn through CLPS missions that will help us better understand the evolution of our solar system and shape the future of human exploration for the Artemis Generation.”  

The first U.S. commercial robotic launch to the Moon successfully lifted off Jan. 8 on the first flight of @ULALaunch’s #VulcanRocket. @Astrobotic’s Peregrine Mission 1 lander is expected to reach the lunar surface in February: https://t.co/csvx73ZqgP pic.twitter.com/N7Mxiqi8GC

— NASA (@NASA) January 8, 2024

Around 50 minutes after launch, the Peregrine lander separated from Vulcan around 500 kilometers (310 miles) above Earth and successfully powered on. 

“After successfully separating from United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket, Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander began receiving telemetry via the NASA Deep Space Network,”Astrobotic said in a mission update Monday on X, formerly Twitter. “Astrobotic-built avionics systems, including the primary command and data handling unit, as well as the thermal, propulsion, and power controllers, all powered on and performed as expected. After successful propulsion systems activation, Peregrine entered a safe operational state.

“Unfortunately, an anomaly then occurred, which prevented Astrobotic from achieving a stable sun-pointing orientation,” the post said.

In a second mission update, the company said it believed “that the likely cause of the unstable sun-pointing is a propulsion anomaly that, if proven true, threatens the ability of the spacecraft to soft land on the moon. As the team fights to troubleshoot the issue, the spacecraft battery is reaching operationally low levels.”

As Peregrine headed toward a period of known communication outage, the Astrobotic team developed and executed an improvised maneuver to reorient its solar panels toward the sun, it said. By midday, Astrobotic reported that it had successfully regained communications with Peregrine, and that the improvised maneuver had been successful in reorienting its solar array towards the Sun. 

“We are now charging the battery,” it said in the third mission update on X. “The Mission Anomaly Board continues to evaluate the data we’re receiving and is assessing the status of what we believe to be the root of the anomaly: a failure within the propulsion system.”

Vulcan’s Inaugural Launch

The launch—the first certification flight (Cert-1) for ULA’s next generation Vulcan rocket— serves as the first of two flights required for U.S. Space Force certification.

“The second certification mission (Cert-2) is planned to launch in the coming months, followed by a summer launch of the first Vulcan mission to support national security space,” ULA said.

Said Tory Bruno, ULA’s president and CEO, in a statement: “Vulcan’s inaugural launch ushers in a new, innovative capability to meet the ever-growing requirements of space launch.As we build on today’s successful launch, the team will continue to work towards our future biweekly launch rate to meet our customers’ manifest requirements, while continuing to develop future Vulcan upgrades including SMART reuse plans for downrange, non-propulsive recovery of Vulcan engines.”

In addition to Astrobotic’s first Peregrine Lunar Lander payload, the Cert-1 mission also included the Celestis Memorial Spaceflights deep space Voyager mission, the Enterprise Flight. Peregrine is carrying 20 payloads from 16 commercial customers representing seven countries.

• READ MORE: Remains of Star Trek’s Nichelle Nichols To Launch into Space

“The payloads come from space agencies, universities, companies, and individuals across the globe,” Astrobotic said. “This includes the first lunar surface payloads from the Mexican and German space agencies, and the first lunar payloads from the countries of the United Kingdom, Hungary, and Seychelles. One of the payloads, DHL MoonBox, contains mementos and messages from over 100,000 individuals around the world.”

When Peregrine attempts to land on the moon on February 23, it will be the first U.S. lander to do so in more than 50 years.

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The space agency is on course to miss its timeline for the Artemis III crewed lunar landing mission, currently planned by December 2025, due to challenges with spacesuits and lunar lander development, the watchdog agency said in a November 30 report.

• READ MORE: Artemis III Astronauts Set to Moonwalk Wearing Prada

Among the challenges are delays with the Human Landing System (HLS)—a Starship variant that is being developed by SpaceX. NASA initially scheduled the program to take 79 months from start to launch. It’s an “ambitious schedule,” and 13 months shorter than the average major NASA project, GAO said.

“The complexity of human spaceflight suggests that it is unrealistic to expect the program to complete development more than a year faster than the average for NASA major projects, the majority of which are not human spaceflight projects,” the agency said. “GAO found that if development took as long as the average for NASA major projects, the Artemis III mission would likely occur in early 2027.” 

• READ MORE: The Implications of SpaceX’s Second Starship Test Flight

Contributing to the slipping of the lunar lander’s readiness date is that eight of 13 key events, such as critical demonstrations, have been delayed, two until 2025. SpaceX also faces a backlog of technical work to complete, according to GAO.

“A critical aspect of SpaceX’s plan for landing astronauts on the moon for Artemis III is launching multiple tankers that will transfer propellant to a depot in space before transferring that propellant to the human landing system,” GAO said. “NASA documentation states that SpaceX has made limited progress maturing the technologies needed to support this aspect of its plan.”

• READ MORE: Astronauts Test Artemis Moon Camera

The commercial modernization of spacesuits are also suffering from design challenges, the GAO added. Axiom, the company contracted by NASA for the redesign, has found the space agency’s original spacesuit design that it was leveraging for reference didn’t include the minimum amount of emergency life support needed for the upcoming lunar mission, GAO said.

“As a result, Axiom representatives said they may redesign certain aspects of the spacesuit, which could delay its delivery for the mission,” GAO added.

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Conversely, when discussing X-planes, most tend not to envision design features like an open cockpit, fixed landing gear, and a maximum speed only four knots faster than the cruise speed of a Cessna 182. Most also would not expect this category of aircraft to utilize second-hand Beechcraft parts. But these characteristics define the bizarre Bell X-14, an experimental vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) jet with a somewhat agricultural aesthetic. Further differentiating it from other X-planes was a second life as a trainer for NASA astronauts to refine their moon-landing skills and a dramatic last-minute rescue from a scrapyard. 

Conceived by Bell Aircraft as part of a U.S. Air Force order to explore and develop VTOL technologies, the X-14 first achieved vertical flight in February 1957. It was among several of the first jet VTOL aircraft to take flight in the mid to late 1950s, a small group that included the Ryan X-13 and the British Short SC.1. The following year, the X-14 successfully transitioned from vertical to forward flight and began comprehensive flight testing at Bell’s facility in upstate New York.

Originally utilizing two nose-mounted Armstrong Siddeley Viper turbojet engines, the X-14 was later upgraded to General Electric J85 turbojet engines—as used in the Cessna A-37 Dragonfly—that produced a total of 6,000 pounds of thrust. This thrust was controlled by a series of vanes within the belly to maneuver the 4,269-pound aircraft. Rather than employ separate engines for forward thrust, the system could direct the thrust downward for takeoff and landing or rearward for conventional flight.

Accurate pitch, yaw, and roll control has historically been a challenge for jet-powered VTOL aircraft. To achieve this, the X-14 utilized a system of bleed air and mechanical spool valves at the tail and at each wingtip. With careful application of the stick and rudder pedals, the pilot could command short blasts of bleed air to nudge the aircraft into the desired attitude during flight.

Bell and the U.S. Air Force tested and evaluated the X-14 and invited pilots and engineers from abroad to participate, thus supporting the development of what ultimately became the VTOL Harrier attack jet. As the X-14’s first chapters of testing drew to a close, NASA took interest. The Apollo program was about to begin, and officials recognized the need for specialized astronaut training. While Gemini had proven astronauts could get to and from space, NASA now needed to train astronauts to precisely maneuver the lunar lander to a predetermined point on the moon’s surface. 

Lacking easy access to a training environment with limited gravity, they employed the X-14, reasoning that the bleed air maneuvering system bore a reasonably close resemblance in practice to the thrusters used to maneuver the Lunar Module. After shipping the X-14 to the Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, California, astronaut flight training commenced. NASA also utilized the X-14 to help develop a more comprehensive training platform, the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle (LLRV).

Among the numerous pilots to fly the X-14 was Neil Armstrong. He put the aircraft through its paces, learning to “perch on a bubble of hot air,” as he reportedly described the hover. Armstrong also reportedly claimed the X-14 was the only aircraft in which he could execute a zero-radius loop, flopping around its center of mass “by deft manipulation of the throttle, nozzle control, and stick.”

All such maneuvers were conducted directly above the airfield of origin, as the total fuel capacity of 110 gallons resulted in as little as 20 to 30 minutes of endurance. Armstrong reportedly ran the tanks dry on more than one occasion, and he compared its glide characteristics to that of a Cessna 206. With Beechcraft wings, the handling would have indeed seemed docile, particularly compared to the F-104 and the hypersonic X-15 he had been flying.

After the X-14 had served its purpose with NASA, it was entrusted to a government entity that initially had plans for restoration but ultimately placed it into long-term storage. Decades of being disassembled to various degrees and moving from place to place took a toll. Sections of the airframe were damaged, the brightly-polished aluminum skin became weathered and dull, and when it ultimately began to resemble a pile of discarded scrap, the entire thing was eventually sent to a scrapyard. 

When an aircraft arrives at a civilian scrapyard, it typically doesn’t take long for it to be erased from existence completely. Fortunately for aviation enthusiasts and historians, however, a man named Rick Ropkey learned about the X-14 before it succumbed to that fate. In the late 1990s, upon learning of its condition and of the plan for it to be scrapped, he purchased it and arranged for it to be trucked to his family’s military history museum in Indiana, the Ropkey Armor and Aviation Museum. 

Ropkey was not satisfied with rescuing only the aircraft itself. He also managed to locate and salvage a massive amount of materials related to the X-14, including large-scale blueprints, various forms of test data, and boxes of manuals, some of which had been initialed “N.A.” Familiar with the aircraft’s history, Ropkey reached out to an old fraternity brother who knew Neil Armstrong personally and eventually got in contact with the legendary astronaut. Before long, Ropkey and Armstrong were on a first-name basis, and Ropkey was able to gather unique, first-hand accounts of the X-14’s history.

Over the years, Ropkey and his son Noble gradually worked through the restoration process, restoring one part at a time while keeping the X-14 on display in their museum. When Ropkey’s father died in 2017, the museum was forced to relocate. Presently, plans are afoot to display the X-14 again, and the restoration is nearly complete. 

While the family has no intention of ever flying the X-14, they are striving to complete a full restoration and share it with the public. Presently, the most significant challenge is sourcing parts for the GE J85 engines, and Ropkey hopes to find a source willing to donate surplus engine parts. “It’s been a labor of love for the last three decades,” Ropkey said, and added, “It’s going to be in the Ropkey hands for a long time.” 

After surviving 24 years of operation with no major accidents or serious injuries, and after countless landings by astronauts-in-training, aviation and history enthusiasts alike are fortunate that the unique X-14 has landed in the hands of a family with a strong appreciation for it and its legendary history.

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