NASA introduced a silent supersonic aircraft for passenger flights

NASA has unveiled a one-of-a-kind silent supersonic aircraft as part of the US space agency’s mission to enable commercial supersonic flight.

At a joint ceremony with Lockheed Martin Skunk Works in Palmdale, California, NASA unveiled the X-59, an experimental aircraft expected to fly at 1.4 times the speed of sound, or 925 mph (1,488 km/h). h).

According to The Guardian, the plane, which is 99.7 feet (30.4 meters) long and 29.5 feet wide, has a thin, pointed nose that is almost a third of the plane’s total length – a feature designed to disperse shock waves. which usually surround supersonic aircraft and result in sonic booms.

In an effort to further enhance the plane’s supersonic capabilities, engineers positioned the cockpit nearly halfway down the length and eliminated the forward-facing windows commonly found on other planes.

Explaining the configurations, NASA Associate Administrator Pam Melroy says, “We made this decision to make the aircraft quieter, but it’s actually an important step forward in aviation technology in itself. Faced with the huge problem of limited visibility in the cockpit, the team developed an external vision system that is truly a miracle thanks to high-definition cameras connected to an ultra-high-definition monitor.”

“The external vision system could potentially impact future aircraft designs where not having that forward-facing window could be advantageous for engineering reasons, as it did for us,” adds Melroy.

The plane also features a top-mounted engine and a smooth bottom to prevent shock waves forming behind the plane and causing sonic booms, The Guardian writes.

The X-59 will make its first flight later this year, followed by its first silent supersonic flight, NASA said. Once the test flights are complete, the agency added, the X-59 will fly over several yet-to-be-selected cities across the U.S. and gather public feedback on the sound the plane produces.

For the past 50 years, commercial supersonic flight over land has been banned in the United States due to public concerns about explosive sonic booms that could be heard miles away.

Addressing this ban, Bob Pierce—the associate administrator for NASA’s aeronautics research mission—says, “Ground flight tests have shown us that it is possible to design an airplane that produces a soft thud instead of a sonic boom. Is this knock quiet enough to support supersonic flight over land? Our laboratory studies would show that yes, but the real answer can only be found by involving people who would hear it in everyday life.”

Pierce said the X-59’s mission will be to “gather data from the people below, determine whether that sonic boom is acceptable, and then feed the data back to U.S. and international regulators in hopes of then overturning that ban.”

At a press conference after the launch, David Richardson, Lockheed Martin’s X-59 program director, said testing of the X-59 is expected to begin around late spring or early summer. “If we find that something is not working nominally, we will go in and make adjustments, or if there are any parts that are not functioning, we will replace them to ensure that the aircraft is fully functional, airworthy and safe before before we send it on its first flight,” Richardson said.