NASA Unveils X-70 Fractal, a Reconfigurable X-Plane Built to Test New Flight Controls
NASA introduced the X-70 Fractal, a crewed experimental aircraft designed to test new flight-control systems and swap research payloads between programs. The agency expects its first flight within two years.
NASA has added a new aircraft to its X-plane line: the X-70 Fractal, a crewed experimental plane built to test advanced flight controls and carry different research payloads from one program to the next without building a new aircraft each time.
The agency announced the aircraft on Wednesday during the UP.Summit at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It expects the X-70 to make its first flight within two years.
The X-70’s main feature is its modular design. Engineers can swap experimental payloads carried inside the aircraft and outside it between research programs, and its flight-control system can be reconfigured quickly to test different aerodynamic ideas in the same vehicle. The aircraft can carry up to 2,000 pounds of payload.
“The X-70 Fractal gives NASA a crewed, high-performance platform to test advanced flight-control, maneuverability, and other cutting-edge technologies in real flight,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said in the agency’s announcement. “Its modular design and ability to rapidly swap internal and external payloads will keep our teams flying, learning, and moving quickly from one experiment to the next.”
What the plane is designed to do
NASA lists a takeoff weight of 10,000 pounds, a cruise speed of Mach 0.75, or about 570 miles per hour, a ceiling of 45,000 feet and a range of more than 1,726 miles. Possible features reported by Popular Science, citing The War Zone, include morphing wings and “air-burst” controls that steer the aircraft with blasts of pressurized air.
What the aircraft will actually look like is still unknown. The only image NASA released with the announcement is labeled as generated content, a shadowy silhouette in fog, and Popular Science noted that details in that image may not appear in the finished aircraft.
A long line of test planes
The X-70 joins a line of experimental aircraft that dates to the 1940s, including the Bell X-1, which first broke the sound barrier in 1947, and the X-15 hypersonic research aircraft. NASA is also flying test flights of its X-59 quiet supersonic jet.
“For decades, NASA Aeronautics has used X-planes to develop technologies that advance aviation,” said Laurie Grindle, director of the Aeronautics Division within NASA’s Research and Technology Mission Directorate. “It’s exciting to bring on another X-plane to accelerate and drive aeronautics research.”
Timelines for such aircraft have slipped before. NASA awarded Lockheed Martin the contract to build the X-59 in 2016 with the aim of test flights by 2020; its first flight took place on October 28, 2025, according to Popular Science.
Reporting based on coverage by NASA, Gizmodo and Popular Science.
