Team WINGMAN from South Dakota State University, comprised of (from left to right) Todd Letcher (advisor), Matthew Wieberdink, Owen Diede, Christian Lee, and Anders Olsen, took home first place at the 2026 Gateways to Blue Skies Forum held at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. Steven Holz, NASA sponsor and GBS Chair and judge, presented the award.
Credit: NASA/Mark Knopp
A South Dakota State University team took first place at NASA’s fifth annual Gateways to Blue Skies Competition, which challenged student teams to address a critical element of U.S. aviation: aircraft maintenance.
This year’s competition, RepAir: Advancing Aircraft Maintenance, asked teams of postsecondary students to develop innovative systems and practices that could advance commercial aircraft maintenance and repair operations by 2035. The competition, sponsored by NASA’s University Innovation project within the agency’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, supported the agency’s objectives of fostering innovative research and strengthening the future aviation workforce.
“This year’s finalists proposed novel ideas to equip companies and their workers with innovative technologies to help keep our nation’s planes airworthy. This is especially critical in a time where flight safety is more commonly in the spotlight and where workforce shortages lead to challenges and opportunities in aviation,” said Steven Holz, associate project manager for NASA’s University Innovation Project and judging panel chair for Gateways to Blue Skies. “Our panel of industry and subject matter experts were excited about the possibilities these concepts could bring, as well as shared insights needed for these teams to push forward for real-world implementation.”
The winning project, WINGMAN, proposed augmented reality safety glasses equipped with voice-controlled manuals, automatic documentation, and photo recognition that could assist aircraft mechanics during routine daily servicing and minor repairs. The glasses would function as the mechanic’s “wingman,” enabling hands-free access to the information and reporting mechanisms required for line inspections.
The WINGMAN team presented their research along with seven finalists at the 2026 Gateways to Blue Skies Forum held May 18 and 19 at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. The forum was judged by subject matter experts from NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration, and industry, including representatives from Southwest Airlines and American Airlines. Students at the forum had the opportunity to network with NASA and industry experts, tour the center, and gain insight into potential careers. The event was livestreamed, and the presentations were recorded.
The winning team members will have the opportunity to intern at one of NASA’s four aeronautics research centers during the 2026-27 academic year, including NASA Langley, NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, and NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California.
“It was super exciting to participate in Gateways to Blue Skies, especially with the really interesting concepts this year,” said Owen Diede, WINGMAN team lead. “We couldn’t have done it without the feedback and support from our faculty advisor, Dr. Todd Letcher, as well as our design review committee, Dr. Ruyi Lian and Dr. Cody Christensen. This was a fantastic opportunity to learn and grow, and we are incredibly thankful for the experience.”
Other recognitions included:
Best Infographic: University of California, Irvine Air Shield: Aircraft Structural Health Intelligence for Evaluation and Lifecycle Detection
Future Game-Changer: University of Georgia Quasar: Quantum Sensing Aerial Reporting
Safety Spotlight: South Dakota State University SPIDER (Surveying Platform and Inspection Device for Enclosed Regions)
The commercial aviation industry is a crucial component of the U.S. economy, yet it faces significant challenges due to a shortage of qualified maintenance workers and increasing demands to keep aircraft running for longer. NASA is dedicated to working with commercial, academic, and government partners to advance the capabilities and performance of U.S. aviation.
The Gateways to Blue Skies Challenge is part of the Transformative Aeronautics Concepts Program in NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate. The NASA Tournament Lab, part of the Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing Program in the Space Technology Mission Directorate, manages the challenge through the National Institute of Aerospace on behalf of NASA.
For more information about NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, visit:
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
NASA’s X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft flies above Palmdale and Edwards, California, during its first flight Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025, accompanied by a NASA F/A-18 research aircraft serving as chase.
NASA/Jim Ross
NASA’s home for experimental flight is welcoming more flyers to its already high-performing fleet as it continues to support science and aeronautics test missions – continuing the legacy of pioneers like Neil Armstrong.
NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, added multiple aircraft this year: two F-15s supersonic jets, a Pilatus PC-12 utility plane, and a T-34 turboprop trainer, which the center will use to support the agency’s advancement of aerospace research.
“Armstrong has a rich history of flight research, but it’s the multidimensional skills of the people we have here, and the knowledge they’ve built to handle very unique aircraft maintenance and modifications, that stands out,” said Darren Cole, capabilities manager for the Flight Demonstrations and Capabilities project at NASA Armstrong.
Armstrong has a rich history of flight research, but it’s the multidimensional skills of the people we have here … that stands out.
Darren Cole
Capabilities Manager at NASA Armstrong
The center plays a pivotal role in worldwide airborne science missions, flying scientists and equipment from NASA, other government agencies, industry, and academia to collect measurements such as air pollution levels, glacier melt trends, and wildland fire mapping.
Scientists can manage experiments in real time aboard flying laboratories like the NASA ER-2, to collect important data with the help of Armstrong’s pilots and airborne science team.
“We all come together to make the science happen,” said Matt Berry, airborne research platforms branch chief at NASA Armstrong. “It is the agility of the Armstrong team that allows us to collaborate with scientists, get their equipment onboard, and to fly them to areas where they need to collect data.”
The center sits on Rogers Dry Lake, a 44-square-mile slat flat area used for aviation research and test operations. Rogers and the adjacent Rosamond Dry Lake have seen everything from space shuttle landings to emergency test flight recoveries. The Rogers lakebed continues to serve as an important piece of Armstrong’s test missions.
For NASA Armstrong, it all started with the first attempt by a human to fly faster than the speed of sound in the Bell X-1. In 1946, 13 employees from NASA’s predecessor agency, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), arrived at what was then known as Muroc Army Airfield to prepare for the X-1 tests. A year later, NACA’s Muroc Flight Test Unit was established as a permanent facility at the airfield.
The center has gone by several names over the years, most recently changing from NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center to NASA Armstrong in 2014. But its legacy has never shifted: The Bell X-1E, the last of the X-1 series of aircraft, now sits in front of NASA Armstrong, welcoming the newest test pilots, engineers, scientists, explorers, and dreamers. And they’re using the aircraft of today to break new barriers.
“I don’t think there is another place in the world with a more diverse fleet of aircraft. We have everything from a low-altitude powered glider to ER-2s, which are flying at high altitudes, and a multitude of aircraft in between,” Cole said.
From sourcing rare components to machining custom parts in-house, NASA Armstrong’s teams transform these aircraft into research workhorses. The center continues its crucial role in leading aeronautics testing, Earth science research, and supporting government and industry partners.
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Students from Cornell University are shown working with an air transportation management tool in which a real drone flying over a remote field thinks its operating with imaginary drones flying in a simulated urban environment. Their work is the result of a NASA grant that is part of the agency’s University Student Research Challenge.
Cornell University / Mehrnaz Sabet
A team of Cornell University students are turning heads within industry and the federal government with the results of their research into creating a national air transportation management system in which thousands of drones could safely operate together.
NASA is sponsoring their work through the University Student Research Challenge (USRC), which provides grants to college students interested in helping the agency realize its aeronautical research goals.
“Looking at new traffic management systems for drones is not new,” said Mehrnaz Sabet, a doctoral student in the field of information science who serves as principal investigator on the grant and leads the Cornell team. “In fact, NASA has led that effort for years.”
Now, through USRC, NASA is giving Sabet and her team the chance to offer up innovative approaches to drone safety by managing their movements in the air, taking advantage of their young minds and fresh ideas.
The ultimate benefit of Cornell’s research in this area is the full realization of advanced air mobility, an area of industry focus that includes everything from urban flying taxis, more robust disaster response aircraft, and hot fresh pizza delivered right to your door.
The work also underscores the value NASA places on maturing cutting-edge technologies and helping to develop its future workforce through initiatives like USRC.
“Sabet and her team have demonstrated versatile skills involving software, algorithms, hardware, sensors development, laboratory tests, simulations, and actual flight tests – a rare combination,” said Parimal Koperdekar, acting director of NASA’s Airspace Operations and Safety Program.
Flying drones like we drive
Currently, drone operators must file plans that fully describes the intended flight path of the drone with a traffic management service. Those plans are checked with others to ensure there will be no collisions – what Sabet calls strategic deconfliction.
The challenge is that today’s air traffic management system is limited in its ability to handle the growing number of aircraft taking to the sky. Adding thousands of drones to the mix during the coming years risks over burdening the system, Sabet said.
What is needed in the air is essentially what we have on the ground – where millions of people drive on a road every day, she said.
As a driver you might know your whole “trajectory,” or the path you’d follow to reach your destination. But you would never coordinate your plan with every other driver on the road before you leave. Instead, traffic laws and infrastructure such as stop lights and traffic signs allow you to deconflict with other cars as you go.
Drone operators will still have to file flight plans saying where they intend to go, but the idea is to incorporate that car-like flexibility into drone operating systems, allowing them to be adaptable during their journeys.
“We need to ensure all these different types of drones can tactically deconflict with each other so that it is safe for them to operate like cars do on the ground. And that missing piece – tactical deconfliction – is at the center of our project,” Sabet said.
Mehrnaz Sabet, a doctoral candidate in the field of information science at Cornell University, leads a student team testing technologies used in a drone traffic management system under a grant from NASA’s University Student Research Challenge, She is seen during a drone traffic simulation exercise taking place in a rural field.
Cornell University
Two worlds joined
The key to the Cornell team’s research is the notion of integrating a simulated world with the real one to test and demonstrate how drones can learn to adapt to potentially hazardous conditions and make necessary corrections in their flight path on their own.
Knowing they could not go out and fly 100 drones at the same time to test their ideas for tactical deconfliction, the students decided to create an entirely virtual urban world to evaluate different high-volume traffic models, separation algorithms, and related data.
“Our first year of the project went into adapting and scaling that simulation engine and it all went very well,” Sabet said. “But we didn’t want to stick to a simulation. We wanted to see how the simulation translated to the real world, which mattered more.”
Still hampered by the limitations of how many drones they could operate and where they could fly – not many and basically in the middle of nowhere – they sought the best of both worlds, real and imagined.
“What we wound up doing was to embed the simulation into a real drone, so the drone thought it was flying in a dense urban environment although it was actually flying out in an open field where there wasn’t a real city in sight,” Sabet said.
before
after
A drone designed and built by Cornell University students hovers over an open field during a test of air traffic management system technologies in which the drone “thinks” its flying within an urban environment. The goal is to prove a system in which drones can safely react to unforeseen events and avoid each other in the sky without human intervention.
Cornell University
Several drones appear in a Cornell University computer graphic simulation of an urban environment in which an air traffic management system is tested to show how the drones can safely alter course on their own to avoid colliding.
Cornell University
A drone designed and built by Cornell University students hovers over an open field during a test of air traffic management system technologies in which the drone “thinks” its flying within an urban environment. The goal is to prove a system in which drones can safely react to unforeseen events and avoid each other in the sky without human intervention.
Cornell University
Several drones appear in a Cornell University computer graphic simulation of an urban environment in which an air traffic management system is tested to show how the drones can safely alter course on their own to avoid colliding.
Cornell University
before
after
drone flight test
Combing real and simulated worlds
The image at left (BEFORE) shows a Cornell University student-designed and built drone flying in the open above an isolated, rural field. The image at right (AFTER) shows the simulated urban environment the real drone “thinks” its flying in as it calculates all the imaginary drones’ flight paths (the blue and yellow lines) to find the best trajectory to safely avoid a collision. This combining of real and simulated worlds allows the drone to safely test its traffic avoidance technologies.
Real world lessons
This allowed the team to try out different traffic management tools and evaluate how drones might coordinate course corrections and avoid collisions with each other.
During the past year, they’ve taken the idea further by flying two real drones in the real world, each running the real-time simulation on board, allowing them to coordinate and “see” both simulated traffic and each other within the integrated test environment.
“We would then intentionally put them on a direct collision course to stress-test the detect and avoid and coordination models and see how well they react and coordinate the drone’s maneuvers to avoid hitting each other,” Sabet said.
“What’s impressive is that Cornell’s study included over 10,000 runs involving more than one million trajectories, and over 200,000 hours of experimentation to understand how multi-agent decentralized coordination would safely take place,” Kopardekar said.
Industry and the Federal Aviation Administration have also responded positively to this research and its potential. The team was asked to use its infrastructure and technology to virtually recreate an incident in 2025 in which a pair of drones collided with a stationary crane in Arizona. The team also showed how the accident could have been prevented.
The team was also asked to simulate recent, real-world fires in California to showcase how drones could better coordinate their movements both to provide situational awareness for public safety officials on the ground and to stay clear of fire-suppressing air tankers.
And according to the Cornell team, the FAA is interested in applying the project’s mix of virtual and real-world testing to evaluate drone operations under increasing levels of operational complexity.
“This kind of mixed-reality type of operational complexity enables them to test drone operations in a way that was not possible before,” Sabet said.
Thanks to NASA’s support through USRC, the Cornell team will continue to expand their capabilities and manage increasingly complex advanced air mobility operations.
“Our goal is to build the foundational systems that enable safe, large-scale autonomy in the skies,” Sabet said.
Jim Banke is a veteran aviation and aerospace communicator with more than 40 years of experience as a writer, producer, consultant, and project manager based at Cape Canaveral, Florida. He is part of NASA Aeronautics' Strategic Communications Team and is Managing Editor for the Aeronautics topic on nasa.gov. In 2007 he was recognized with a Distinguished Public Service Medal, NASA's highest honor for a non-government employee.
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
For 10 years, a NASA initiative has helped the agency produce breakthrough aeronautical innovations while fostering the aviation workforce of tomorrow – and the University Leadership Initiative (ULI) is still flying high, making awards with the potential to change 21st century air travel.
Through ULI, NASA has supported more than 1,100 students at 100 schools, allowing them to pursue advancements in top priority areas for U.S. aviation, including high-speed flight, advanced air mobility, future airspace management and safety, and electrified propulsion.
Many of those students have used their ULI experience as a springboard to careers in aviation. And many of their ideas — such as designing more efficient wings or building supersonic aircraft that can change shape in flight — are either being investigated further by industry or the technologies adopted outright.
As it celebrates a decade of success, NASA’s ULI team is looking forward to leveraging student innovations with new awards in 2026 and beyond.
“Through ULI we’re building the workforce of the future and fostering the skill sets we so desperately need to compete globally,” said John Cavolowsky, director of NASA’s Transformative Aeronautics Concepts Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
Through ULI we're building the workforce of the future and fostering the skill set we so desperately need to compete globally.
john cavolowsky
Director, Transformative Aeronautics Concepts Program
What makes ULI unique from other NASA research projects, and especially appealing to universities, is that it provides the opportunity for university students and faculty to propose what research to conduct.
Usually, NASA determines the research it needs and then does the work itself or through partnerships and contracts. But with ULI, the agency shares its goals and universities consider how they can best help realize them.
“There are no better ways in my mind to help develop that talent within the students than to engage them in identifying big problems and then give them the resources they need to use their creativity to solve them,” Cavolowsky said.
ULI history
NASA’s relationship with academia and reliance on its research proficiency is written into NASA’s DNA going back to the days of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, from which NASA was formed in 1958.
“For more than a century we have leaned on the brilliance and the capabilities of universities to help us think,” Cavolowsky said. “With ULI we can ensure they continue to bring their fresh ideas and young energy to the work we do at NASA Aeronautics.”
ULI evolved from an earlier project called Leading Edge Aeronautics Research for NASA (LEARN). NASA selected five LEARN teams in 2015 to pursue truly outside of the box ideas that showed promise but needed additional study.
One of those teams, for example, sought to take a cue from migrating flocks of birds by asking if airliners could save fuel by cruising in a giant ‘V’ formation. The numbers were intriguing and simple flight tests proved the concept, although the idea never made it to practice.
One of the earliest selected ULI teams was led by James Coder, who at the time was an aerospace engineering professor at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. His team worked on technology that would smooth the airflow around a wing to make it more efficient.
Technically known as slotted natural laminar flow (SNLF) wings, Coder has called the idea a potential game changer for commercial airliners. The more efficient wing would mean less drag on an airplane, which in turn could help airlines save money on fuel.
Coder credits ULI for not only helping to prove the technology’s effectiveness – with the aid of wind tunnel testing at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California – but for providing students with an experience they couldn’t get elsewhere.
Three University of Tennessee/Knoxville students and co-investigator Dan Somers (in red jacket) prepare a slotted laminar flow wing section for testing in a wind tunnel at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California.
University of Tennessee/Knoxville
“After 10 years industry remains interested in the SNLF technology and I am optimistic for good reason about its future,” Coder said. “And project alumni have gone on to do many wonderful things and leverage what they did and learned through the ULI.”
With ULI experience prominent on their resumes, several of the students on Coder’s team wound up with jobs in industry – such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin – and government labs. One is currently a NASA Pathways intern working on his PhD.
Now at Pennsylvania State University, Coder remains a strong advocate for ULI.
“It goes above and beyond simple workforce development,” he said. “We recognized early on the value-add of ULI is the students themselves. While we could have just trained students en masse, we wanted to put them in the front seat of technical leadership on the project. I think this was a very successful strategy that benefited the project and the students as they embarked on their careers.”
Mighty morphing
Forrest Carpenter is another example of a student whose ULI support led to work after graduation – in this case at NASA.
“Working on the ULI project was an incredible experience, one I will always be thankful for and will remember fondly,” Carpenter said. “I think the project challenged me to be something more than ‘just an engineer;’ really helping my professional development and giving me a clearer focus on my passion.”
As a student at Texas A&M, he was part of a team selected by NASA in 2017 to research a novel idea in which a supersonic aircraft could alter its shape to fly more efficiently based on the atmospheric conditions in real time. Dimitris Lagoudas, now the university’s interim department head for aerospace engineering, led the team.
Members of a University Leadership Initiative round one team led by Texas A&M University participate in a status update meeting with NASA prior to their final review in 2022.
Texas A&M University / Jonathan Weaver-Rosen
A laser shooting out ahead of the aircraft would take measurements of the oncoming air and then the aircraft’s computer would command patches of shape memory alloys and other mechanisms to morph the aircraft’s outer shape.
One possible application of the technology could be in contributing to the reduction of the loudness of a sonic boom, expanding on the science behind NASA’s X-59 quiet supersonic technology demonstrator that seeks to reduce the sonic boom to a sonic thump.
“My main research role on the team was performing Computational Fluid Dynamics simulations of the various geometries we were looking at, including a pre-production version of X-59,” Carpenter said.
His work on the idea continues. A follow-on NASA project, GoSWIFT, will flight test the core technologies Carpenter and his ULI team worked on at Texas A&M. Only this time, Carpenter is the co-lead for the tests, which are targeted to take place at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in California in the near future.
Carpenter’s enthusiasm for his work and gratitude for how ULI led to his career with NASA resonates with many other ULI alumni.
“The number of students impacted, and how they were impacted, by a long-term project like ULI is huge,” Carpenter said. “NASA’s involvement in this kind of activity can only strengthen the research done in this country and to help inspire and develop the next generation of our workforce.”
Jim Banke is a veteran aviation and aerospace communicator with more than 40 years of experience as a writer, producer, consultant, and project manager based at Cape Canaveral, Florida. He is part of NASA Aeronautics' Strategic Communications Team and is Managing Editor for the Aeronautics topic on nasa.gov. In 2007 he was recognized with a Distinguished Public Service Medal, NASA's highest honor for a non-government employee.
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