New X-Plane To Be Announced At Max Power Airshow: NASA Administrator Isaacman

NASA’s boss also deflected a new question about the space agency’s ‘missing’ SR-71 Blackbird. New X-Plane To Be Announced At Max Power Airshow: NASA Administrator Isaacman. NASA/Bill Ingalls NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman says a new X-plane will be announced at the Max Power exhibition at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida this coming weekend.

He insisted, however, that this is unrelated to an SR-71 Blackbird that mysteriously disappeared from public display earlier this year. Isaacman also deflected a direct question about that SR-71 and the possibility that it could fly again, quipping that “we’re just cleaning it, man.” Isaacman made his new remarks about the SR-71 that had been on display, commonly referred to by the tail number 844, and NASA’s broader X-plane plans on a new edition of NASASpaceflight ’s The Flame Trench podcast, which was posted online last Friday. 844 had been on display at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center, which is co-located at Edwards Air Force Base in California, following its retirement in 1999.

This particular SR-71 had been the last flying Blackbird. SR-71 tail number 844 seen in NASA service in the 1990s. NASA “I gotta ask, has 844 been powered on yet?” Eric Johnson, a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics educator and streamer, who was also on the podcast, asked Isaacman.

“So, we’re just cleaning it, man,” Isaacman said in response, with a smile and a small laugh.