Question: What corporation designed a supersonic light fighter family, initially designed in the late 1950s use in a two-year program that was a joint effort between NASA's Langley Research Center, Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, California and Northrop Grumman?
Context: The Controlled Impact Demonstration (or colloquially the Crash In the Desert) was a joint project between NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) aimed at acquiring data, as well as demonstrating and testing new technologies, with the intent of improving occupant crash survivability, by crashing a Boeing 720 aircraft.  The tests involved the efforts of NASA Ames Research Center, Langley Research Center, Dryden Flight Research Center, the FAA, and General Electric, and required more than 4 years of work before the test occurred.  The aircraft was remotely controlled for the tests, and numerous test runs were undertaken prior to performing the actual impact.  The impact test flight occurred on December 1, 1984, proceeding generally according to plan, and resulting in a spectacular fireball which required more than an hour to extinguish. The NASA Neil A. Armstrong Flight Research Center (AFRC) is an aeronautical research center operated by NASA.  Its primary campus is located inside Edwards Air Force Base and is considered NASA’s premier site for aeronautical research.  AFRC operates some of the most advanced aircraft in the world and is known for many aviation firsts, including critical support for the first manned airplane to exceed the speed of sound in level flight with the Bell X-1, highest speed ever recorded by a manned, powered aircraft (North American X-15), the first pure digital fly-by-wire aircraft (F-8 DFBW), and many others.  AFRC also operates a second site in Palmdale, Ca.  known as Building 703, once the former Rockwell International/North American Aircraft production facility, at Air Force Plant 42.  There, AFRC houses and operates several of NASA's Science Mission Directorate aircraft including SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy), a DC-8 Flying Laboratory, a Gulfstream C-20A UAVSAR and ER-2 High Altitude Platform.  David McBride is currently the center's director. LASRE was NASA's Linear Aerospike SR-71 Experiment which took place at the Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, California, until November 1998.  The experiment sought to provide flight data to help Lockheed Martin validate and tune the computational predictive tools used to determine the aerodynamic performance of the Lockheed Martin X-33 lifting body and linear aerospike engine combination and to lay groundwork for a future reusable launch vehicle. The NASA Academy is NASA's premiere leadership training program for undergraduate and graduate students.  Since its founding in 1993, the NASA Academy has brought together future leaders of the aerospace industry and exposed them to the inner workings of NASA, academia, and industry.  The Academy consists of a ten-week summer program hosted by a participating NASA center.  Currently there are academies at Ames Research Center, Marshall Space Flight Center and Glenn Research Center.  Goddard Space Flight Center and Dryden Flight Research Center previously hosted NASA Academies, as well. The NASA Shaped Sonic Boom Demonstration, also known as the Shaped Sonic Boom Experiment, was a two-year program that used a Northrop F-5E with a modified fuselage to demonstrate that the aircraft's shock wave, and accompanying sonic boom, can be shaped, and thereby reduced.  The program was a joint effort between NASA's Langley Research Center, Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, California and Northrop Grumman. The Northrop F-5A and F-5B Freedom Fighter and the F-5E and F-5F Tiger II are part of a supersonic light fighter family, initially designed in the late 1950s by Northrop Corporation.  Being smaller and simpler than contemporaries such as the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II, the F-5 cost less to both procure and operate, making it a popular export aircraft.  The F-5 started life as a privately funded light fighter program by Northrop in the 1950s.  The design team wrapped a small, highly aerodynamic fighter around two compact and high-thrust General Electric J85 engines, focusing on performance and low cost of maintenance.  Though primarily designed for the day air superiority role, the aircraft is also a capable ground-attack platform.  The F-5A entered service in the early 1960s.  During the Cold War, over 800 were produced through 1972 for U.S. allies.  Though the USAF had no acknowledged need for a light fighter, it did procure roughly 1,200 Northrop T-38 Talon trainer aircraft, which were directly based on the F-5A. The Northrop HL-10 was one of five American heavyweight lifting body designs flown at NASA's Flight Research Center (FRC—later Dryden Flight Research Center) in Edwards, California, from July 1966 to November 1975 to study and validate the concept of safely maneuvering and landing a low lift-over-drag vehicle designed for reentry from space.  It was a NASA design and was built to evaluate "inverted airfoil" lifting body and delta planform.  It currently is on display at the entrance to the Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base. Charles Gordon Fullerton (October 11, 1936 – August 21, 2013) was a United States Air Force colonel, a USAF and NASA astronaut, and a research pilot at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Facility, Edwards, California.  His assignments included a variety of flight research and support activities piloting NASA's B-52 launch aircraft, the Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), and other multi-engine and high performance aircraft.  Fullerton, who logged more than 380 hours in space flight, was a NASA astronaut from September 1969 until November 1986 when he joined the research pilot office at Dryden.  In July 1988, he completed a 30-year career with the U.S. Air Force and retired as a colonel.  He continued in his position of NASA research pilot as a civilian.  Fullerton and his wife and their two children lived in Lancaster, California. The X-53 Active Aeroelastic Wing (AAW) development program is a completed American research project that was undertaken jointly by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), Boeing Phantom Works and NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, where the technology was flight tested on a modified McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet.  Active Aeroelastic Wing Technology is a technology that integrates wing aerodynamics, controls, and structure to harness and control wing aeroelastic twist at high speeds and dynamic pressures.  By using multiple leading and trailing edge controls like "aerodynamic tabs", subtle amounts of aeroelastic twist can be controlled to provide large amounts of wing control power, while minimizing maneuver air loads at high wing strain conditions or aerodynamic drag at low wing strain conditions.  The flight program which first proved the use of AAW technology in full scale was the X-53 Active Aeroelastic Wing program. Shuttle Carrier Aircraft ferry flights generally originate at the Edwards Air Force Base in California or on rare occasions White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico following missions which land there, especially in the early days of the Space Shuttle program or when weather at the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) at the Kennedy Space Center prevents ending missions there.  Flights generally end at the SLF.  A number of flights have begun at the Dryden Flight Research Center following delivery of the orbiter from Rockwell International to NASA from the nearby facilities in Palmdale, California.
Answer: Northrop Corporation