NASA T-38 Replacement

NASA T-38 Replacement

Story by Marcus Pinnock

crispytooktheshot

Published by Matthew Dawson May 16th, 2026

Photographs by Marcus Pinnock unless specified otherwise 

For more than 60 years, NASA has been using the T-38 to train the greatest test pilots and astronauts in the world, but time is taking its toll on these aircraft.  As of 2025, NASA operates around 16 aircraft, a 50% decrease of their original order of 32 aircraft. 

 Due to the exotic training nature of astronauts, the T-38 is consistently flown at very compromising and difficult flight regimes throughout their mission, usually consisting of supersonic flight and long term G-induced maneuvers.  After a half century of service, NASA is paying between 30 and 40 million dollars annually to maintain their T-38 fleet, maintenance costs may have been cheaper if the Air Force wasn’t fighting to hold onto their own T-38s it wouldn’t be a massive issue. 

Until the T-7 can consistently be produced, NASA will have no choice but to hold onto what they’ve got, worse yet NASA has their eyes on the T-7 to fully replace their own T-38 fleet, but due to Boeing and Saab seemingly unable at the moment to iron out their issues with the T-7 and produce meaningful numbers NASA has put a foot into the Navy’s T-45 replacement program. 

If NASA does stick with the Navy’s choice it may see a moderate shift in capability and mission parameters as whatever the Navy might choose there is a chance that it may not be supersonic, then departing from the supersonic flight profile that the T-38 offered.  Part of why the T-38 was selected in the first place is that it was the world’s very first supersonic trainer aircraft, and also the most produced. 

The T-38 is quite the difficult aircraft to replace as it set multiple speed and altitude records over the course of the early 1960s, one among those records was set by Jacqueline Cochran in southern California.  She would go on to set a new speed record within a nine mile oval track ending with a recorded 844.2 miles per hour, making that a new speed record at that distance.  With these feats in sight, whatever aircraft NASA may choose to replace their T-38 fleet, it will certainly have big shoes to fill.  Boeing still seems confident in their T-7 Redhawk as an appropriate replacement not only for the Air Force but with NASA and even the Navy. 

Featuring a single  afterburning engine layout, shoulder mounted wings, a wide bubble canopy, and the latest in avionics technology makes it seem like a great successor.  Lockheed hasn’t made any direct offers to NASA about equipping them with a new trainer replacement, but their T-50 built in collaboration with Korean Aerospace Industries has been offered to the Navy. 

 With a proven design that has been in active service since 2011, eight years after the Air Force’s Air Education and Training Command developed and released requirements for the T-X program looking for a new aircraft to replace the aging T-38.  The most major advantage that the T-50 holds is that it is a proven design with a reliable track record provided that it has been in service with Korea for more than twenty years. 

 With these options in front of NASA, only time will tell which aircraft they will ultimately choose to replace their dwindling T-38 Talon fleet.  With such a small fleet it is only a matter of time before aircraft cannibalism is no longer an option if a future replacement isn't acquired in time, until then, the T-38 will continue to train test pilots and astronauts until its very last day.