- March 14, 2001 - First X-40A glide flight at Edwards.
The X-40A is a low-speed test vehicle to prove the technology for
the orbital X-37. During its first flight, the X-40A vehicle was released
from a helicopter and made a 74 second glide, landing on the Edwards
AFB runway
- June 2, 2001 - X-43A lost on first launch attempt.
The X-43A is designed to test a scramjet engine at speeds of Mach
7 or Mach 10
- August 13, 2001 - Helios a long-duration, solar
powered unpiloted aircraft -- takes off from the island of Kauai and
sets a world altitude record of 96,863 feet
- October 23, 2001 - Autonomous Formation Flight project
completes 22 dual-aircraft flights, showing a fuel savings of up to 20 percent
- November 18, 2001 - Dryden provides communications
support for NASA/Air Force observations of the Leonid meteor storm
- December 13, 2001 - X-38 Vehicle 131R makes the final flight of the program
- March 27, 2002 - Active Aeroelastic Wing (AAW) F-18 rolled out
- April 14, 2002 - B-52H arrives at Dryden after
being modified as the new drop aircraft
- May 22, 2002 - The X-45A unmanned combat air vehicle
(UCAV) makes its first flight.
- November 15, 2002 - AAW F-18 makes its first flight
- June 9, 2003 - Altair UAV makes its first flight at Dryden
- March 27, 2004 - The X-43A hypersonic technology
demonstrator is rocketed by the Pegasus booster to an altitude of 95,000
feet and an airspeed of Mach 6.8 or 5,000 mph. It sets the world airspeed
record for an aircraft powered by an air-breathing engine
- November 16, 2004 - The X-43A sets a new airspeed record
of Mach 9.6 or about 6,800 mph and proves that scramjet propulsion is a viable
technology for powering future space-access vehicles and hypersonic aircraft
- December 17, 2004 - Having launched advanced flight research
vehicles for nearly a half century, the venerable B-52B "mothership" heavy-lift
launch aircraft is decommissioned
- August 9, 2005 - STS-114, the Return-to-Flight-Mission of Space shuttle Discovery, lands at Edwards Air Force Base to
complete its 14-day, 5.8 million-mile journey
- August 30, 2006 - The first autonomous aerial refueling is
accomplished between a Dryden F-18 and 707 tanker
- May 31, 2007 - The SOFIA 747SP arrives at Dryden from Waco, TX
- June 22, 2007 - Space shuttle Atlantis lands at Edwards to
complete the STS-117 mission
- July 20, 2007 - The X-48B RPRV makes its first flight at Dryden.
It reached an altitude of 7,500 feet in the 31 minute flight
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