NASA put its all-electric experimental aircraft the X-57 Maxwell on display last week at an aeronautics laboratory in the California desert.
The Maxwell is designed with 14 electric motors propelling the aircraft with specially-designed batteries. The plane is still under development, but NASA has built a simulation that offers pilots and engineers the opportunity to try out the prototype before it is completed. NASA’s goal is to develop a functional commercial product that other private manufactures and government regulators can use as a model for this new approach to air travel.
"We're focusing on things that can help the whole industry, not just one company," Brent Cobleigh, project manager for NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center, told Reuters in an interview. "Our target right now is to fly this airplane in late 2020."