Nasa has announced a series of new tests for its 1,100mph (1,770kph) supersonic aircraft tipped to be the follow-up to the legendary Concorde.
The plane, dubbed the X-59 Quiet Supersonic Transport (QueSST), aims to cut out the noise associated with supersonic travel.
Nasa will fire off the aircraft’s ‘quiet’ sonic booms over a small city in Texas this year in a bid to gauge public reaction to the dampened supersonic thuds.
The agency said the first full test flights of the X-59, which could one day fly from London to New York in just three hours, are scheduled for 2022.
Scroll down for video
Nasa has announced a series of new tests for its 1,100mph (1,770kph) supersonic commercial airliner tipped to be the follow-up to the legendary Concorde. The plane (artist’s impression) aims to cut out the noise associated with supersonic travel
Dubbed ‘son of Concorde’ by aviation fans, the vehicle could lead to the first supersonic aircraft to carry commercial passengers since the iconic Anglo-French jet was decommissioned 15 years ago.
Originally named the Low-Flight Flight Demonstrator by Nasa, the agency announced last week that the aircraft was to be called X-59 QueSST going forward.
Before the aircraft takes to the skies, Nasa is investigating whether members of the public are put off by the noise produced by X-59 when it breaks the sound barrier.
Tests scheduled for November will see an F-18 fighter jet conduct a dive manoeuvre off the shores of Galveston, Texas – an island city near Houston.
The plane will dive from almost 50,000 feet (15,200 metres), briefly going supersonic and firing off the sound likely to come from X-59 aircraft.
The noise, which Nasa calls a ‘sonic thump’, should sound more like a car door slamming as opposed to the booms produced by existing supersonic aircraft.
The agency will measure the sounds using sensors on the ground while gathering public reaction through a series of surveys.
Alexandra Loubeau, Nasa’s team lead for sonic boom community response research at Langley, said: ‘We’ll never know exactly what everyone heard.
‘We won’t have a noise monitor on their shoulder inside their home.
Nasa pilot Jim Less will fire off ‘quiet’ sonic booms over a small city in Texas this year in a bid to gauge public reaction to the dampened supersonic thuds. Pictured is Less with the F-18 fighter jet aboard which he will perform the research
‘But we’d like to at least have an estimate of the range of noise levels that they actually heard.’
X-59, which Nasa is developing with Lockheed Martin’s aeronautics branch, is scheduled to make its first flight in 2022.
Originally named the Low-Flight Flight Demonstrator by Nasa, the agency announced last week that the aircraft was to be called X-59 QueSST going forward.
The US Air Force made the name change in-part as a hat tip American X-plane history, which began in 1947 with the world’s first supersonic plane, the the Bell X-1.
‘For everyone working on this important project, this is great news and we’re thrilled with the designation,’ Jaiwon Shin, associate administrator for Nasa’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, said in a statement last week.
The X-59 project aims to cut out the noisy sonic booms that echoed above cities in the era of Concorde, while travelling at speeds of 1,100mph (Mach 1.4 / 1,700 km/h).
The loud booms that rang out whenever a Concorde broke the sound barrier were often described as ‘unsettling’ by members of the public, which ultimately limited the aircraft to flights over the Atlantic when it began carrying passengers in 1976.
X-59 is designed to stop shockwaves triggered by the movement of air particles when an aircraft breaks the sound barrier from merging – a phenomenon that gives off the telltale sonic boom of supersonic aircraft.
Nasa hopes to reduce the sound of the sonic boom to a quiet thud, similar to the sound of thunder rumbling in the distance or a neighbour closing their door.
Nasa is developing the aircraft with Lockheed Martin’s aeronautics branch with test flights planned for 2022. The plane is dubbed the Quiet Supersonic Transport (QueSST) low-boom flight demonstrator (artist’s impression)
‘With the X-59 you’re still going to have multiple shockwaves because of the wings on the aircraft that create lift and the volume of the plane,’ said Ed Haering, a Nasa aerospace engineer at Nasa’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in California.
‘But the airplane’s shape is carefully tailored such that those shockwaves do not combine.
‘Instead of getting a loud boom-boom, you’re going to get at least two quiet thump-thump sounds, if you even hear them at all.’
Nasa’s November tests will produce similar shockwaves using an F-18 fighter jet to conduct sharp manoeuvres in the air.
The aircraft, pilot by Nasa researcher Jim Less, will dive from 49,000 feet (15,000m) and go briefly supersonic before levelling off at 30,000 feet (9,000m).
Shockwaves produced by the manoeuvre will concentrate directly below the aircraft in the form of a very loud, focussed pair of sonic booms.
A few miles from the dive points, the noise quickly trails off as they spread out and weaken.
Flights conducted by Nasa in November will study the US public’s reactions to ‘quiet’ supersonic noises above their homes. Pictured is an artist’s impression of the Quiet Supersonic Transport (QueSST) low-boom flight demonstrator (LBFD)
‘The result in that area: a pair of quiet sonic booms – soft thumps, really – which people on the ground, including those Nasa researchers and resident volunteers, might barely notice, if they hear anything at all,’ the agency wrote in a statement.
QueSST is the latest addition to the X-series of experimental aircraft and rockets, used to test and evaluate new technologies and aerodynamic concepts.
Their X designation indicates their research mission status within the US system of aircraft naming.
This all dates back to Chuck Yeager’s sound-barrier-breaking craft, the X-1, a rocket engine–powered aircraft, designed and built in 1945, that achieved a speed of nearly 1,000 miles per hour (1,600 kmh) in 1948.
The team hopes to reduce the sound of the sonic boom to a quiet thud, similar to the sound of thunder rumbling in the distance or a neighbour closing their door. This graphic compares the F18 sonic boom to the sonic ‘thump’ that Nasa aims to achieve in the future
Nasa’s vision for the X-59 was approved In the latest proposed US budget released by the Office Of Management And Budget In Washington, DC, in February.
The space agency was awarded $19.9 billion (£14.3bn) for the next year, $500 million (£360m) more than the previous year.
It is not known what proportion of this has been allocated for the supersonic aircraft project.
QueSST will be used as a test bed for technologies that could make their way into commercial planes.
Nasa is hoping to see the first flight tests take place in 2022, with public reaction tests to the final aircraft scheduled for the following year.