Dryden Flight Research Center (DFRC) 

Center Assets: Located on the Edwards Air Force Base, CA, DFRC employs about 550 civil 

servants, consisting of professional engineers, pilots, mechanics, technicians, instrument 

fabricators, and other technical support. Center capabilities that will be tapped in the President’s 

new program encompass the expertise for innovative flight research techniques for all phases of 

flight projects – from highly developed design through development, fabrication, and operations 

processes. Specific new activities include the following. 

Flight Opportunities Program Office: Through the combination of two existing NASA 

programs, the Commercial Reusable Suborbital Research (CRuSR) project and the Facilitated 

Access to the Space environment for Technology (FAST) project, DFRC will provide flight 

opportunities for science, technology development and education efforts to reduced-gravity 

environments, brief periods of weightlessness, and high-altitude atmospheric research. CRuSR 

will help foster the development of the commercial reusable suborbital transportation industry, 

an important step in the longer-term path to provide the Nation with much lower-cost and much 

more reliable access to orbital space. The FAST project also provides opportunities for 

emerging technologies to be tested in the microgravity environment thereby increasing their 

maturity and the potential for their use in NASA programs and in commercial applications. As 

the Program Office, DFRC will coordinate and manage these flight opportunities for payloads 

from across the Nation. 

Aeronautics Research Augmentation: 

DFRC will support the Aviation Safety Program into verification and validation of flight critical 

systems that will be required in order to successfully realize the NextGen. This research will 

include advanced simulation and testing capabilities to enable the assurance of reliable and safe 

functionality in distributed air traffic management systems, which must operate normally as well 

as in degraded modes. 

Highlights*:

 Flight Opportunities: New Program Office to manage $17 million in FY 2011 and $85 million over

five years to provide flight opportunities for cutting‐edge research.    

 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.
DFRC will support the Integrated Systems Research Program to address operational and safety 

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

supporting the generation of the concept of operations (CONOPS), and human factors such as 

ground control station pilot-vehicle interfaces, flight research, and simulations that support UAS 

flight operations. 

DFRC, 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.