The Federal Aviation Administration selects a Mississippi State University team as the FAA’s Center of Excellence for Unmanned Aircraft Systems. The Center, known as the Alliance for System Safety of UAS through Research Excellence, or ASSURE, focuses on research, education and training in areas critical to safe and successful integration of UAS in the nation’s airspace. The team, led by MSU, brings together 15 of the nation’s leading UAS and aviation universities.

Boeing, Mississippi State, and Mississippi officials announce MSU will host a research center, located at Raspet, that will facilitate and promote research related to aerospace composite structures.

Stark Aerospace begins making unmanned aerial vehicle parts in its start-up operations at Raspet. Two years later, it moved to its 120,000 square foot facility in the nearby Golden Triangle Industrial Aerospace Park, where it operates today.

Aurora Flight Sciences, which became a Boeing company, opens a start-up manufacturing facility at Raspet. Four years later, it moved to a permanent facility in nearby Columbus, where it operates today.

The National Soaring Museum designates the Raspet Flight Research Laboratory a “National Landmark of Soaring” in recognition of its contributions to motorless flight, including pioneering drag reduction and suction boundary layer research that propelled the United States to world leadership in sailplane design in the late 1950s.

Raspet relocates its primary operations to a 50,000 square-foot facility previously donated by Honda.

The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics presented the Raspet Flight Research Laboratory with the Piper General Aviation Award, in recognition of its 50 years of outstanding contributions to the advancement of general aviation.   

The world’s first all-composite experimental business jet, the Honda MH-02, conducted its maiden flight from the George M. Bryan Airport in Starkville. Funded by the Honda Aircraft Company, the jet was fabricated and assembled at the Raspet Flight Research Laboratory where extensive flight testing was also conducted.

A senior design class constructs a one-third scale mockup of the X-30 National Aerospace Plane, demonstrating the Raspet flight lab’s ability to construct complex, large-scale composite structures.

Honda Research and Development Corporation begins a program at Raspet to develop a turbojet-powered aircraft constructed completely from composite materials.