HAMPTON, Virginia — NASA ushered in a new era of flight research Friday with the opening of a state-of-the-art wind tunnel at its Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, marking the agency’s first major new wind tunnel facility in more than four decades.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman and other federal and local leaders, including Virginia Democratic Lt. Gov. Ghazala Hashmi, Sens. Mark Warner (D-VA) and Tim Kaine (D-VA), Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA), and U.S. General Services Administration Administrator Edward Forst, were among those who attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony marking the completion of the 25,000-square-foot Flight Dynamics Research Facility.