X-51A flight ends prematurely

The X-51A Waverider is mounted under the wing of a B-52 Stratofortress at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., in preparation of its Aug. 14, 2012, test flight. On a previous flight, the X-51A flew for more than three minutes at Mach 4.88 under scramjet power. (Courtesy photo)

Enlisted Aviators drop supplies

Staff Sgt. Peter Jensen collects straps that restrained airdrop bundles in the back of a C-17 Globemaster III on Sept 30, 2011. Jensen and the crew of the C-17 air dropped 40 bundles to a remote outpost in Afghanistan. Aerial delivery of critical supplies decreases the total number of resupply convoys conducted in high threat areas. Jensen is a loadmaster assigned to the 816th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron. (U.S. Air Force Photo/Master Sgt. Jeffrey Allen)

Airman takes to the skies

Airman 1st Class Nicholas Fennen and Lt. Col. Rich Radvanyi run through preflight checklists of a Cessna 172 during an incentive flight at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, June 22, 2012. Fennen was selected to participate in the Ramstein Daedalians Aviation Incentive Flight program, which provides quarterly aviation incentive flights to deserving young Airmen and gives them the chance to live a childhood fantasy of flight. Fennen is a 86th Airlift Wing Judge Advocate discharge paralegal and Radvanyi is a pilot and president of the Coleman Aero Club. (U.S. Air Force photo/Tech. Sgt. Chad Thompson)

JASSM-ER nears operational employment

The Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile - Extended Range is an autonomous, air-to-ground, precision-guided standoff missile designed to meet the needs of U.S. warfighters. It shares the same powerful capabilities and stealthy characteristics of the baseline JASSM, but with more than two-and-a-half times the range. (Courtesy photo)

Mars Rover "Curiosity"

In this image, two engineers are dwarfed by NASA's Mars Science Laboratory's parachute, which holds more air than a 3,000-square-foot house and is designed to survive loads in excess of 36,000 kilograms (80,000 pounds). The parachute, built by Pioneer Aerospace, South Windsor, Conn., has 80 suspension lines, measures more than 65 feet in length, and opens to a diameter of nearly 55 feet. It is the largest disk-gap-band parachute ever built and is shown here inflated in the test section with only about 12.5 feet of clearance to both the floor and ceiling of the world’s largest wind tunnel at National Full-Scale Aerodynamics Complex. The parachute is attached to a launch arm mounted on a swivel-base that allows the test item to pitch and yaw under simulated conditions of subsonic entry into the Martian atmosphere. (Photo courtesy of NASA/JPL and Pioneer Aerospace Corp.)

Mars Rover "Curiosity"

Aerospace Testing Alliance Instrumentation Technician Doyle Jones performs a continuity check on the instrumentation inside the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle heat shield material candidate model prior to a test run in Arnold Engineering Development Center's H2 test facility. (Photo by Rick Goodfriend)