David Willis details the life of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Boeing 757 and highlights some of the many research programmes it participated in during its career as a testbed.
Although several Boeing 757s have been involved in NASA projects, the Administration has only ever owned one example of the airliner. Between 1994 and 2009 a Boeing 757 aircraft served as a research platform with the organisation, primarily tasked with evaluating technology with the aim of improving aviation safety. Several of the systems it pioneered have since become common in commercial aviation today.
Until 1997, NASA’s primary commercial aircraft research platform was Boeing 737-130 N515NA (c/n 19437), the first 737 built. NASA modified the 737 as its Transport Systems Research Vehicle to conduct trials of equipment and techniques of interest to both industry and the airlines. Among the many changes installed was a second cockpit in the forward cabin, which helped develop and demonstrate technology used in the electronic flight displays that later became standard in the Boeing 757 and Boeing 767.
The aircraft had joined NASA on May 17, 1974, with a total of 978 flight hours, adding just over 2,000 more in its first 20…
