Langley Research Center (LaRC) 

Center Assets: Located in Hampton, VA, LaRC employs over 1,900 civil servants, consisting 

mainly of professional engineers and scientists. Center capabilities that will be tapped in the 

President’s new program include aerospace research, atmospheric science, aerodynamics and 

flight research, structures and materials science, and technology development. Specific new 

activities include the following. 

Game Changing Development Program Office: This program will use a DARPA-like "endgame" approach. Research teams, provided with challenge goals and top-level requirements for 

the desired capability, will be required to define solution approaches and the anticipated 

technology needs. Teams are held accountable for ensuring that discoveries will move rapidly 

from the laboratory to application through fixed-duration awards. Game Changing Development 

projects are intended to be capability-oriented and differ from traditional R&D methods that 

advance discipline or core knowledge. In this grand challenge technology development program, 

individual project failure must be acceptable for innovation to flourish, and even in cases of 

failure, we extract program knowledge. As the Program Office, LaRC will spearhead the 

development of this new approach for the Space Technology Program. 

Climate Initiative: The President’s FY 2011 Budget provides additional funding to accelerate the 

development of new satellites to enhance observations of the climate and other Earth systems. 

Included in that acceleration are specific projects managed by LaRC including: 

 Refurbishment of the SAGE-III (Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment) instrument, 

for use on the ISS, will provide near-global, long-term measurements of key components 

of the Earth's atmosphere. The most important of these are the vertical distribution of 

Highlights*:

 Game Changing Development:  New Program Office to manage $124 million in FY 2011

and $1.5 billion over five years to foster innovate research and development projects

that have the potential to revolutionize spaceflight.    

 Earth Science Missions:  Augmentation and acceleration of Earth Science missions,

including SAGE III on the ISS (climate continuity measures), CLARREO (Decadal Survey

Tier 1 mission), and NASA’s Venture Class activities.  

 Aeronautics Research:  The FY 2011 funding augmentation will be used to increase

research activities into green aviation and Next Generation Air Transportation System

(NextGen) capabilities  

*   Proposals regarding Program Office assignments will be implemented following Congressional approval of the

FY 2011 budget; and funding amounts include the cost of civil service labor.
aerosols and ozone from the upper troposphere through the stratosphere. SAGE-III will 

be ready for flight to the ISS by late calendar year 2013. 

 CLARREO (Climate Absolute Radiance and Refractivity Observatory) is a Tier-1 

Decadal Survey mission, designed to make precision, stable measurements to enable 

rapid detection of long-term changes in the climate system, and its radiation-related 

feedback mechanisms. The mission is a jointly managed with GSFC, and being 

developed with other partner organizations. The President’s FY 2011 budget provides 

for accelerated development and launch by CY 2017 of the first of two CLARREO 

spacecraft.

 Venture Class Program investments will enable the program to expand in two distinct and 

complementary directions: 

o Beginning in FY2011, the conduct of annual competitive Venture-Instrument 

solicitations for a single, $90M-class instrument (5-year development) for launch 

on a flight of opportunity; 

o Release in FY2012 of the Venture-2 competitive solicitation for development and 

flight of a complete, PI-led, small mission ($150M NASA funding cap, launch no 

later than FY2018 after a 5-year development), with an every-other-year pattern 

of solicitations alternating between aircraft and space mission opportunities. 

Aeronautics Research Augmentation: 

LaRC will support the Aviation Safety Program in the verification and validation of flight critical 

systems that will be required in order to successfully realize NextGen. This support will include 

the development of more efficient verification and validation approaches to satisfy flight-critical 

safety requirements, especially needed considering the trend for increasingly software-intense 

automation and networks of distributed systems. 

LaRC will support the Integrated Systems Research Program, addressing operational and safety 

issues related to the integration of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) into the national airspace by 

providing expertise in the areas of hardware and software verification and validation, 

autonomous system design, separation assurance technologies, and associated certification 

issues. 

LaRC, along with the other NASA research centers, will support the augmented research and 

development efforts, including grants and cooperative agreements, to support NASA’s 

environmentally responsible aviation project. These research plans, which are currently being 

developed, will include design and feasibility studies, high-fidelity simulations, flight 

demonstrations, design competitions and prize challenges.