Apr 3 2018

From The Space Library

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Current revision

RELEASE 18-020 NASA Awards Contract to Build Quieter Supersonic Aircraft

NASA has taken another step toward re-introducing supersonic flight with the award Tuesday of a contract for the design, building and testing of a supersonic aircraft that reduces a sonic boom to a gentle thump.

Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company of Palmdale, California, was selected for the Low-Boom Flight Demonstration contract, a cost-plus-incentive-fee contract valued at $247.5 million. Work under the contract began April 2 and runs through Dec. 31, 2021.

Under this contract, Lockheed Martin will complete the design and fabrication of an experimental aircraft, known as an X-plane, which will cruise at 55,000 feet at a speed of about 940 mph and create a sound about as loud as a car door closing, 75 Perceived Level decibel (PLdB), instead of a sonic boom.

Once NASA accepts the aircraft from the contractor in late 2021, the agency will perform additional flight tests to prove the quiet supersonic technology works as designed, aircraft performance is robust, and it’s safe to operate in the National Airspace System.

Beginning in mid-2022, NASA will fly the X-plane over select U.S. cities and collect data about community responses to the flights. This data set will be provided to U.S. and international regulators for their use in considering new sound-based rules regarding supersonic flight over land, which could enable new commercial cargo and passenger markets in faster-than-sound air travel.

RELEASE 18-024 NASA Brings Universe of Discovery to USA Science and Engineering Festival

Step into the future of aviation and space exploration with NASA at the USA Science and Engineering Festival on Saturday, April 7, and Sunday, April 8, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington.

Leading up to the main event, NASA will hold a media availability at 12:30 p.m. EDT Friday, April 6, with the agency’s acting Chief Technologist Douglas Terrier, and other agency experts, who will be on hand to discuss the NASA missions that are inspiring today’s youth – the Mars generation.

During the two-day public event, Saturday and Sunday, festival visitors can come to NASA’s interactive and informative exhibit at booth #5509 in the Space Exploration Pavilion, Hall E, to learn about:

• Getting to know – and getting to – Mars
• Viewing the universe through Hubble’s lens
• X-rays, gamma rays, and how it all began
• Our Sun, star of the Milky Way
• Looking for the ingredients for life on other worlds
• Living and working on the International Space Station
• Big breakthroughs with small satellites
• X-planes! NASA has them. All-electric. Quiet supersonic.
• Lunar exploration, today and tomorrow

NASA’s exhibit will showcase the future of human space exploration – including the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System rocket. Also on display will be the agency’s partnership with American Girl to inspire young girls to pursue education and careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).

From 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, the stage located within the NASA exhibit will feature scientists and engineers presenting fast-paced, TED-style talks with titles such as:

• So You Want to Go to Space. I did!
• NASA Aeronautics and the X-57 All-Electric Plane
• How is the Weather in Space?
• Increasing the Awesome: NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope
• How Do You Make a Planet?
• Is Anyone Out There: NASA’s Search for Life in the Universe

Also on Saturday, high school students will have the opportunity interview NASA experts from 1 to 1:50 p.m. about their work and its challenges during the festival’s Meet the Scientist & Engineer event in the Career Pavilion. And, on Sunday, NASA astronaut Jessica Meir will talk at 11 a.m. on Stage E about life as an astronaut and scientist.