All Stories

The Ingenuity prototype will join other robotic explorers on display at the National Air and Space Museum.

The Museum has acquired from JPL the prototype Ingenuity helicopter that achieved the first successful free flight under simulated Martian conditions. A series of prototypes, engineering, and flight models to learn and better understand design challenges and work through solutions was required before flight on another planet could be possible.

The Bell UH-1 Iroquois, better known as the Huey, remains a powerful symbol of the Vietnam War.

Analogous to the Wright brothers on December 17, 1903, the first flights of Ingenuity clearly demonstrated that a powered machine could fly under control in the thin Martian atmosphere. Read about how the Mars Helicopter has exceeded expectations and what it has accomplished on the surface of the Red Planet for an entire year.

The first six months of testing the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter has surpassed expectations to say the least. Ginny has shown us that flight on the Red Planet is not only possible, but it may even be considered in future planetary endeavors. Explore six things we learned from the tiny Mars flyer in the first six months.

As we collect the delivery drone used by Wing for the first commercial drone delivery to a U.S. home, we talk to Wing CTO Adam Woodworth about his work at Wing, his passion for aviation, and how it feels to have a project he worked on join the Smithsonian collection.

Zipline uses drone technology to connect essential medical products with people in need in the developing world.

The story of this emerging technology will be a cornerstone of our new Thomas W. Haas We All Fly gallery, a new exhibition that is part of the ongoing reimagining of the Museum. We are excited to feature an example of Amazon’s work in the autonomous aerial delivery field—the Amazon Prime Air Hybrid Drone.

The Museum recently added the Insitu ScanEagle X200 unmanned aircraft system (UAS), or drone, to its collection. This ScanEagle, currently on display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, served in Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) demonstrations from 2013 to 2015 to integrate UAS into the U.S. National Airspace System. It performed ice floe monitoring missions in northern Alaska and beyond visual line of sight validation flights, including railroad track inspection in New Mexico. ScanEagle was the first drone to receive an FAA restricted category type certificate.

On August 1, the National Air and Space Museum will join with the United States Marine Corps and the National Museum of the Marine Corps to bid adieu to one of the most important American military aircraft of the past 50 years, the Boeing CH-46 Sea Knight, or “Phrog,” as it is almost universally known among Marines.