NASA aircraft X-59 – supersonic like the Concorde, only better | DW News

NASA aircraft X-59 – supersonic like the Concorde, only better | DW News

Now NASA and Lockheed Martin have unveiled what they call the next generation of supersonic aircraft the makers say the experimental plane combines supersonic travel with low noise the public got the first glimpse of the new x59 research plane at Lockheed Martin’s Design Center in California the manufacturers say it will

Break the sound barrier and stay no louder than a car door closing the last supersonic commercial aircraft Concord stopped flying more than 20 years ago because it was banned from flying over Urban centers as it was too loud the x59 quest short for quiet supersonic technology an airplane that

Could lead to a new generation of faster than sound airliners the sun set on the previous generation over 20 years ago with the final Flight of the Concord which has since been relegated to museums the Franco British Ultra fast passenger plane was always too expensive to operate but that wasn’t its biggest

Problem aircraft generate pressure waves in the air kind of like ripples in water that propagate away from them at the speed of sound over 12200 km an hour when a supersonic plane hits or exceeds that speed the pressure waves compress and merge into shock waves these are

Perceived by people on the ground when the plane passes over as a loud Thunderclap of sound called a sonic boom NASA and Aerospace company Lockheed Martin have been working on the x59 since 2016 it’s an experimental plane able to fly faster than sound that doesn’t blast the ground with unwanted

Noise using models and new technologies the company’s Engineers came up with a design that minimizes the boom after the plane crosses the sound barrier only smaller waves reach the ground making only as much noise as its makers say as a car door thuing shut the x59 design still has to go

Through rigorous testing its developers are also planning trips over population centers to see how people perceive its Sonic footprint a first flight is slated for later this year if the plane passes those tests it could one day make high-speed flight quiet enough to be a feasible possibility for passenger

Planes joining me now is Keith he’s a journalist and former NASA employee he edits NASA watch.com it’s good to see you again Keith I wanted to ask you what are you most excited about with this new supersonic aircraft well I lived near Dallas airport and back in the day I remember

The Concord leaving at four o’clock three times a week it was loud and you know some people might say well why do we need another one of these we got rid of the uh the Concord because it didn’t work well the issue with Concord was that it was loud

And it can only fly across oceans so right off the bat you’re limiting the ability of a supersonic aircraft to do anything commercial what this aircraft does is it allows hopefully the shape and that’s what you know you look at anything that flies it’s the shape and

How that thing moves to the air that creates these Sonic booms or in this case doesn’t and of course you may say well it doesn’t look very green well it’s again it’s the shape of the aircraft you may have the same sort of shape that the x59 has that could be

Powered by hydrogen or even electric so that that’s what’s exciting is that we’re finally figuring out how to do the fast thing without breaking everybody’s eardrops so you said this one was more viable commercially does that mean we can see passengers on this plane soon well this obviously you’d have to

Make scale it up but there’s already several countries that are waiting eagerly for this information because they are looking at their next sort of way of you know jumping ahead to do Supersonic and the thing with NASA is NASA is a government agency that’s designed to push the envelope pun

Intended a and figure out how to do these difficult things and then hand it off to the private sector to say okay we figured it out now go do something more interesting with it so right now it’s too small but you said these other makers can make it bigger and more commercially

Viable yeah well usually you start like you start with something little like this and air tunnel then wind tunnel then you make it bigger and bigger now they have something that a pilot Can Fly And if it shows that indeed they’re going to fly it around the country and

Have people say well did you hear it and once they’ve done that test they’ll go back and say all right here’s the Bas here’s what we learned and here’s how the aircraft industry can then say well thank you and then they can figure out

How to make it bigger so that you know a whole bunch of us can fly inside one of them all that sounds very exciting and hopefully we can be taking that flight soon then thank you so much as always keepi coing from nasaw watch.com my pleasure

More than 20 years after the final flight of the legendary Concorde, another supersonic aircraft is put into the spotlight: NASA’s X-59 is supposed to combine the advantage of cruising above the speed of sound with only little disturbances for the people on the ground. While the Concorde had been annoyingly loud when triggering the so-called sonic boom, the X-59 is supposed not to be louder than a closing car door. In a few months, the new supersonic aircraft may be seen flying across American skies.

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