The companies are:
- Bell Helicopter Textron Inc, of Fort Worth, Texas;
- GE Aviation, of Cincinnati;
- Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company of Palmdale, California;
- Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems of Redondo Beach, California;
- Boeing Research & Technology of St. Louis; and
- United Technologies Corporation and subsidiary Pratt & Whitney of Hartford, Connecticut.
They were selected from 20 proposals submitted by teams from industry and academia in response to a call from the Advanced Composites Project, which is part of NASA's Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate's Integrated Systems Research Program.
The project sought proposals to reduce the time for development, verification and regulatory acceptance of new composite materials and structures.
A panel of experts from NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration and the US Air Force Research Laboratory reviewed the submissions and assessed them according to specific criteria. The six firms were chosen for their technical expertise, willingness and ability to share in costs, certification experience with government agencies, focused technology areas and partnership histories.
The first task for the partners is to develop articles of collaboration and establish how the alliance will work and how companies may be added in the future.
