Aerotech News and Review February 7 2025

JOURNAL OF AEROSPACE, DEFENSE INDUSTRY AND VETERANS NEWS
Helicopter removes artifact from Nasa armstroNg rooftop
NASA photograph by Carla Thomas
A helicopter is positioned to remove a rooftop pedestal from Bldg. 4800 at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center at Edwards, Calif., on Oct. 4, 2024. The pedestal was used since the 1950s to 2015 to house different telemetry dishes to collect data from research aircraft.
by Jay Levine
NASA Armstrong
What do the X-15 and the space shuttles have in common?
Information from the rocket plane and the spacecraft, as well as many ex- perimental aircraft, were tracked from a pedestal and telemetry dish during key eras in flight history at or near NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, Calif.
When the NASA facility’s administra- tion Bldg. 4800 was built in the 1950s, the infrastructure was included to anchor
the rooftop pedestal and dish as the primary way to gather data from aircraft during flights. It was retired in 2015, but a recent roofing project enabled relocation of the artifact to a new place of honor for its support of many experimental aircraft such as the lifting body aircraft, the re- verse swept wing X-29, and the highly maneuverable X-31.
“Gathering telemetry data from air- craft on missions is at the core of what we do. Close proximity to the back ramp was one of the big advantages of having
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NASA photograph by Jim Ross
A rooftop pedestal and telemetry dish gathered information from research aircraft at Bldg. 4800 at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center at Edwards, Calif. The pedestal was used since the 1950s to 2015 to house different dishes to collect data from research aircraft. On Oct. 4, 2024, a helicopter was used to remove the pedestal from the roof.
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