Today, satellites are the battle fleet's keenest eyes. But during World War II, crews aboard lumbering flying boats provided distant, early warning of enemy ships and aircraft at sea. The Consolidated ...

The 1909 Wright Military Flyer is the world's first military airplane. In 1908, the U.S. Army Signal Corps sought competitive bids for a two-seat observation aircraft. Winning designs had to meet a ...

Visit us in Washington, DC and Chantilly, VA to explore hundreds of the world’s most significant objects in aviation and space history. Free timed-entry passes are required for the Museum in DC. The ...

In the spring of 1917, Britain's most famous World War I fighter, the Sopwith Camel, made its debut. Shortly after deliveries to front-line squadrons of the Camel began, Sopwith designed a new ...

The majority of what has been accomplished in space has been carried out by uncrewed robotic craft.

The moonquakes resulted from formation and subsequent activity along a relatively young thrust fault crossing the Taurus-Littrow Valley floor, the site of the last Apollo mission in 1972. The fault ...

Five Lunar Orbiter missions photographed both the near and far sides of the Moon in 1966 and 1967 to prepare for the Apollo landings.

The National Air and Space Museum's Apollo 13 Command Module showcases the spacecraft that safely returned astronauts to Earth after an in-flight emergency.

The Kugisho MXY7 Ohka Cherry Blossom was a Japanese rocket-powered human-guided kamikaze attack aircraft used during World War II.

The Museum’s Black Widow, a P-61C-1-NO, was delivered to the Army Air Forces in July 1945. It participated in cold-weather tests, high-altitude drop tests, and in the National Thunderstorm Project, ...

Preliminary work by BMW on jet propulsion began in 1934 with formation of its aircraft engine organization. Development included consideration of ducted fans and turbochargers before evolving into the ...

The MiG-21 was the Soviet Union's first truly modern, second-generation jet fighter. Testing began in 1956, and the first version entered service in 1960 as the MiG-21F-13. Soviet designers developed ...