NASA has selected two companies of the United States for the purpose of developing the electric propulsion technologies for the aircraft, along with the aim of introducing this technology to the aviation fleets of the United States by the year 2035.
The two companies are MagniX and GE Aviation, and it is also going to conduct their work during the next five years, which has been including the ground and flight test demonstrations, along with the collaborations with the other NASA projects that have been focusing on the electric propulsion, along with the data analysis and the flight test instrumentation.
The awards to the companies have been given under the EPFD (Electric Powertrain Flight Demonstration) program of NASA, and it is having a combined value of 253.4 million dollars, and out of the full amount, 179 million dollars had been awarded to the GE Aviation and the company ‘MagniX’ will be getting 74.3 million dollars.
Gaudy Bezos-O’Connor, EPFD project manager at NASA said, the MagniX and GE Aviation is going to be performing the integrated megawatt-class powertrain system ground along with the flight demonstrations for the purpose of validating their concepts and the benefits of the projects for the configurations of the aircraft in the future.
He also said, these demonstrations are going to responsible in identifying and retiring the technical barriers along with the risks associated with the integration, and it is also going to be helpful in informing the development of the regulations and standards for the EAP systems in the country.
