New X-plane will be built to investigate quiet transition to supersonic flight
The Lockheed Martin Skunk Works X-plane design will cruise at 55,000 feet, Mach 1.4, and will generate a gentle, supersonic heartbeat instead of a sonic boom. (PRNewsfoto/Lockheed Martin Aeronautics)
NASA has awarded a contract to Lockheed Martin to build a full-scale experimental aircraft (X-plane) to be known as a low-boom flight demonstrator. The contract is the culmination of a decade of collaboration, and takes forward a contract awarded in 2016 for preliminary design of the aircraft.
The agreement is part of a project called QueSST (quiet supersonic technology), which aims to dull the volume of a sonic boom to about the level of the car door closing. At 75 perceived level decibels, the target noise is more of a dull thump than a boom. The aim is to establish an acceptable commercial supersonic noise standard that would allow the current regulations which ban supersonic travel over land to be overturned. It was these regulations which severely hampered Concorde’s use in the 1970s and 1980s; with no possibility to fly at supersonic speeds over the US, the aircraft could not serve routes to the West Coast.
The low-boom flight demonstrator research programme has two goals: to design and build the aircraft, which although large-scale would still be smaller than any aircraft that went into service; and to fly it over selected US communities to gather data on human responses to the sonic thump. The project is based across all four of NASA’s aeronautical research field centres in Virginia, Ohio, and California.
The aircraft will be designed to cruise at 55,000 feet (16.7km) altitude at 940mph (1512km/h). The contract began this week and will run until the end of 2021, and is valued at $247.5m. The schedule will see Lockheed Martin hand the aircraft over to NASA at the end of the period, and NASA plans to begin the flight and data collecting phase of QueSST in mid-2022.
“It is super exciting to be back designing and flying X-planes at this scale,” said Jaiwon Shin, NASA’s associate administrator for aeronautics. “Our long tradition of solving the technical barriers of supersonic flight to benefit everyone continues.”
“We’re honored to continue our partnership with NASA to enable a new generation of supersonic travel,” added Peter Iosifidis, Low-Boom Flight Demonstrator program manager, Lockheed Martin Skunk Works. “We look forward to applying the extensive work completed under QueSST to the design, build and flight test of the X-plane, providing NASA with a demonstrator to make supersonic commercial travel possible for passengers around the globe.”
If the trials are successful in single occupant (pilot) mode, how far can or will scale-up go? How many passengers need to go this fast?
I had the good fortune to work/consult with several Engineers at the Skunk works. This related to projects in carbon fibre and related high strength and specification materials. A fascinating place: very definitely at the pinnacle(s) of technology. How sad that their abilities are ‘diluted’ by the ‘lower’ status and abilities of those who politically ‘direct’ their efforts: and US foreign policy.
Pity there’s no hint on how: viz antiphased attenuation as in dynamical stealth. Nor recognition that thirst was reason for range restriction. Nor mention of revolutionary RTD by Lucasian Lighthill and colleague Crighton amongst many more enlisted on engineering their foundation fundamentals to cap Concorde’s engine noise enough for FAA acceptance .
technology is one thing-whether we need to travel at supersonic speeds is another matter, which includes the ethics of how polluting these beasts will be. Just because it can be done, is no reason to do it, much as I admire technology for what it has done for our lifestyle’s–a solid reason/s to justify this pollution abuse of the upper atmosphere is required.