A partnership between GE Aerospace and NASA is scheduled to start a series of flight tests on Monday to research new technologies for reducing non-carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to climate change. The tests will study how weather is affected by the contrail clouds of ice particles that airplanes emit and ways to reduce them, GE Aerospace said Friday.
Dubbed as the Contrail Optical Depth Experiment, the tests will involve the NASA Langley Research Center’s G-III aircraft trailing GE Aerospace’s 747 flying test bed in flight and using light detection and ranging, or LiDAR, technology to scan the aircraft’s contrails.
The tests, which will be flown from Virginia, seek to advance NASA’s LiDAR capability for 3-D contrail imaging for a better understanding of contrail formation and behavior over time.
Propulsion System Evaluations
The tests will initiate new operating methods for GE Aerospace’s flying test bed that advance the performance evaluation on the company’s new commercial engine technologies. The company’s new Open Fan engine architecture, advanced combustion designs and the propulsion systems under development through aerospace company CFM International’s Revolutionary Innovation for Sustainable Engines program are among the technologies to be evaluated in the tests.
Arjan Hegeman, GE Aerospace’s general manager of future of flight technology, conveyed the company’s pride in collaborating with NASA on innovative technological approaches on more sustainable aircraft flights. “These tests will provide critical insight to advance next generation aircraft engine technologies for a step change in efficiency and emissions,” he added.