NASA Asked Several Former SR-71A Staffers to Help Secret Restart – Aviation Week

NASA is pursuing a secret effort to return a retired Lockheed SR-71A Blackbird (Tail No. 844) to flight, having removed the aircraft from its pedestal at Armstrong Flight Research Center and rolled it into the former Space Shuttle hangar at Edwards AFB. Agency managers recruited several former SR-71 test engineers and maintainers this summer - among them retired test engineer Mike Relja and longtime specialist Tim Conners - with David Ash, a new special projects director, leading outreach. Administrator Jared Isaacman publicly signaled a rebuild of NASA’s X‑plane fleet and even teased an SR‑71‑like outline at a recent summit, but agency spokespeople have declined to confirm details as workers inspect and begin hands‑on work inside the hangar.

Restarting Tail No. 844 faces steep technical and logistical hurdles: a 59‑year‑old airframe that last flew in 1999, engines and a spare that haven’t been rotated or run in decades, cavities likely contaminated with water and sand, and the 2007 destruction of roughly $600 million in Blackbird spares. Unique consumables and systems - JP‑7 fuel, triethylborane ignition, bespoke oils, hydraulics and specialized ground carts and tooling - are largely unavailable, and trained crews and supply chains have atrophied. Former staffers say the project could be feasible only with substantial funding and intensive engineering; NASA’s project lead reportedly assured recruits that engineering solutions exist, though some veterans remain skeptical.