The Tupolev Tu-144 was a supersonic airliner that was first flown in the Soviet Union in December 1968. While it just about beat the Anglo-French Concorde in terms of making its first flights, it had a far shorter and less successful career as a commercial aircraft. However, in the 1990s, NASA worked with the plane's manufacturers to develop a new variant, which was known as the Tu-144LL.

Letting bygones be bygones

Given the mid to late 20th-century tensions between the United States and the USSR, it might be surprising to hear that an American government agency worked on a Soviet-rooted aircraft. However, the end of the Cold War gave rise to an unprecedented opportunity for the two former rivals to align in a joint aeronautical flight research program that would make use of the largely obsolete Tu-144.

In 1993, US Vice President Gore and Russian Prime Minister Chernomyrdin chaired the United States-Russian Joint Commission on Economic and Technological Cooperation. According to NASA, at the time, the agency and commercial aviation industries across the US were focused on a High-Speed Research (HSR) program to further develop Supersonic Transport (SST) aircraft technologies.

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NASA Tupolev Tu-144
Photo: NASA

The ultimate end goal for this interesting project was to place the US in a leading position to develop a next-generation supersonic plane. After all, its previous attempt, the Boeing 2707 SST, never really managed to get off the ground. There had also been public opposition to the presence of supersonic aircraft in the US, delaying Concorde's deployment on flights from Europe to the East Coast.

Getting the project underway

Since 1990, the Tupolev Aircraft Design Bureau had been suggesting that a Tu-144 could be used as a flying testbed in support of the HSR initiative. Subsequently, a team of senior NASA and aviation specialists across the country developed a series of flight experiments. Additionally, there was a collaboration with a top team from Tupolev to understand the necessary modifications to perform those experiments.

These tasks would inspire the Tu-144LL Supersonic Flying Laboratory. This project played an important part in the joint research program. Over the span of two years, there were 27 research flights. There were 6,000 miles between the US and the plane's base, so there were some challenges. However, workers overcame these struggles, and US pilots made three evaluation flights in September 1998.

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Tu-144
Photo: NASA

The project was a great achievement overall. Nine experiments, including seven in the air and two on the ground, gathered crucial flight data. This information ramped up the US and Russian supersonic flight databases.

Successful findings

NASA reports that "propulsion, aerodynamic, structural heating, structural acoustics, ground effects, and handling qualities data from the experiments were eagerly assimilated into the program's information database. In March 1998, the Joint Commission recognized the program as a model for US and Russian government-business partnerships in the development of advanced technologies."

A year later, the HSR program underwent cancellation. 1999 was also the year that the Tu-144 once again saw retirement, as the conclusion was that it would not be economically viable to introduce a new supersonic passenger jet. Two decades later, there is still a buzz about the next generation of supersonic airliners, but we will have to wait and see how the industry pans out over the next few years.

What are your thoughts about NASA's work with the Tupolev Tu-144? Was this a surprising move for the organization? Let us know what you think in the comment section!

Source: NASA