NASA is planning a series of test flights of a new, experimental aircraft shaped to try to travel faster than sound without generating a sonic boom. Supersonic flight, reaching speeds in excess of about 768 miles per hour, generates shock waves in the air that merge into two distinct booms that follow the craft in question. For this reason supersonic overland travel is usually banned due to the unacceptable noise it produces – even though reaching such speeds can cut commercial flight times by about half.
To overcome this limitation, NASA must investigate a new aircraft configuration – realized in the experimental Lockheed Martin X-59 (“Quiet SuperSonic Technology) QueSST aircraft – that should be able to fly silently at supersonic speeds.
Mr. Shah said: “NASA’s X-59 aircraft is intended to validate and demonstrate the design tools and technologies that make it possible to design an aircraft with a different shape that changes how supersonic shock waves behave.
“Instead of coming together to be heard as a loud bang, the shock waves don’t merge. They quickly attenuate, resulting in a sound more like a soft thump.”
To assess whether the design works in practice, NASA is planning a series of test flights over various communities in the US. Mr Shah and his team will both record the sound of the aircraft heard on the ground and conduct surveys of the public to understand their willingness to accept different noise levels.
According to the space agency, it is hoped that their data will inform regulatory authorities in the future development of an overland supersonic noise standard in the US.
In a statement, NASA said: “NASA aerospace innovators are leading a government and industry team to collect data that could enable supersonic overland flight, dramatically reducing travel time in the United States or anywhere in the world.
“The Quest mission has two goals: 1) design and build NASA’s X-59 research aircraft with technology that reduces the loudness of a sonic boom to a soft boom for people on the ground.
“And 2) fly the X-59 over select U.S. communities to collect data on human responses to the noise generated during supersonic flight and provide that data set to U.S. and international regulators.
“Using this data, new noise-based rules regarding supersonic overland flight could be written and adopted, which would open the doors to new commercial cargo and passenger markets to provide faster-than-sound air travel.
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NASA has said the first test flight of the X-59 will take place next year, with the next 18 months of trials allowing the agency’s engineers to ensure the plane performs as expected and is safe to fly.
Following this, the craft will begin testing four to six communities in the U.S. in 2025 and 2026, the data of which it will provide to regulators in 2027.
Mr. Shah delivered a presentation on the Quest mission today at the 183rd Meeting of the Acoustical Society, being held this week at the Grand Hyatt Nashville Hotel in Tennessee.
While most modern fighter jets are capable of supersonic speeds, few commercial aircraft are designed for operation at speeds above Mach 1, the “sound barrier”.
However, there are two notable exceptions, including the Soviet Tupolev Tu-144, which made its first flight in December 1968 and last flew in 1999, and the Franco-British Concorde, which operated from March 1969 to November 2003.
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The Tupolev Tu-144 was withdrawn from passenger service in 1978 after two emergency landings. The craft remained in service as a cargo aircraft until 1983, after which it was used solely for research and training purposes by the Soviet space program and NASA.
Public enthusiasm for the Concorde, meanwhile, waned in the aftermath of the crash of Air France Flight 4590 – a disaster that killed all 109 passengers and crew, along with four staff members of the Hôtelissimo Les Relais Bleus Hotel in which the plane crashed.
The tragedy was caused by the plane running over debris on the runway, which caused a tire to explode and damage both the extended landing gear and an internal fuel tank, rendering the plane unable to reach the speed needed for a controlled launch.
However, the accident revealed a weakness in the Concorde’s design – the design had 70 tire or wheel-related incidents in just 27 years of service – and even subsequent improvements to the craft seemed unable to restore public confidence in it. to repair the plane.
This, and the drop in passenger numbers on the plane in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, eventually led to the craft being withdrawn from service.