Due to aerodynamic heating, flight vehicles traveling at supersonic speeds are subject to large surface panel temperature increases that may cause large thermal deflections. These deflections will alter the vehicle's configuration and affect its aerodynamic characteristics. AMAC’s novel concept for reducing and controlling the adverse effects of thermal and aerodynamic loading is to embed pre-strained shape memory alloys (SMA) in surface panels. AMAC has also developed SMA applications (such as actuators) in the fields of cryogenics and superconductivities.