PALMDALE -NASA this week awarded a $247.5 million contract to Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company of Palmdale to build an X-plane that will be capable of flying at supersonic speeds without generating a sonic boom, officials announced Tuesday.
The full-scale plane, known as the low-boom flight demonstrator, is to be built at the Skunk Works facility in Palmdale and delivered to NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center by the end of 2021. Lockheed Martin had won a previous contract to work on the plane’s preliminary design in 2016.
The new X-plane’s mission is to provide crucial data that could enable commercial supersonic passenger air travel over land.
“It is super exciting to be back designing and flying X-planes at this scale,” stated Jaiwon Shin, NASA’s associate administrator for aeronautics. “Our long tradition of solving the technical barriers of supersonic flight to benefit everyone continues.”
The X-plane is intended to create a “gentle thump” during flight, no louder than closing a car door, while cruising at about 940 mph at 55,000 feet, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The plane’s outer design is key to generating this softer noise by separating the sonic waves created during supersonic flight so they never join together to create the loud sound.
After receiving the plane from Lockheed Martin in late 2021, NASA plans to conduct a series of flights over certain U.S. cities to get community feedback on the sound, according to The Times. That data will then be turned over to U.S. and international regulators to be considered when making new rules on sound for supersonic flights over land.
The Federal Aviation Administration has had a long-standing ban on supersonic flight by commercial aircraft over land.
The NASA X-plane is just one of several new moves into the supersonic passenger jet space. Companies involved in the effort say the growth in global business travel, as well as new developments in materials and computing, could make supersonic flight more economically viable than during the days of the Concorde.
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Susan Jackson says
If they are willing to spend that much for the X-Plane how much are they willing to spend for Jobs in the Antelope Valley area?
Tim Scott says
A one off ‘proof of concept’ plane isn’t exactly a jobs program. Once it flies and proves the concept, who will be designing and building supersonic commercial planes for airline use, and where we they be built. That’s the question. Unfortunately, the likely answers are Boeing and Seattle. The AV is the number one go to place for building heavy bombers for the military, but our record on civilian aircraft is not all that promising.
TSparky says
Last time I checked Palmdale is in the AV.
Laughing says
That is a very small sum of money.
Alexis says
It takes people to build the X-plane, Susan, in Palmdale.
MP says
Susan, The money is paid to people. They design, acquire materials, build it, Test it, fly it, collect data, analyze data, transfer technology to commercial sector…. who then pays people for the same type of work for production commercial airliners and business jets.
Tom says
Zero. There not building a fleet of these planes at most three one for wind test, then two for flight in the event one goes down. Lockheed already has the staff needed most parts will be outsourced to machine shops and such. This project will probably cost Lockheed more than what NASA is giving them in the long run. It’s a pity contract since Lockheed didn’t get the bomber contract and possible cuts on the F-35.