"Quiet Supersonic" Technology Set for 2023 Takeoff

The NASA Quesst program received an update on their program, showing off some of the recent developments in their X-59 as they ready themselves for a test flight in 2023. 

The aircraft is the spiritual descendant of the original Bell X-1 that first broke the sound barrier 75 years prior, continuing its work as the team continues NASA's mission to push the envelope of supersonic capability. Breaking the sound barrier is a loud, intrusive event for those at ground level, but the X-59 is designed to slip past it in relative calm. 

Catherine Bahm, engineer and manager of the Low Boom Flight Demonstrator project, sees the aircraft as a continuation of the original X-1 team's work. “That first supersonic flight was such a tremendous achievement, and now you look at how far we’ve come since then. What we’re doing now is the culmination of so much of their work.” 

Her team, working from the Armstrong Flight Research Center in California, has designed and built the X-59 to produce an aircraft that can transition beyond the sound barrier while emitting a quieter ‘thump’ instead of the characteristic boom that would accompany the transition. Even better, they hope, would be for the aircraft to go supersonic with no noticeable sounds at ground level. If successful, the way would be opened up for the return of commercial supersonic transit. The dream of so many aviation enthusiasts, a second generation Concorde, may even come to fruition with the right combination of performance, design, and legislative favor. But first, the X-59 has to perform. 

The precursor to the program, the Shaped Sonic Boom Demonstration, used a modified Northrop F-5E to establish the fundamentals of quieter sonic booms. The long nose and added bodywork allowed NASA to begin development of “quiet supersonic technology”, a concept that once would have seemed closer to a joke than a real program. If the X-59 is successful, however, it just might upend a lot of aeronautical tradition. If the X-59's operating principles are combined with other recent technologies and developments then an affordable, sustainable supersonic aircraft could become a regular fixture of civil aeronautics in years to come.

“We’ve kind of been stuck with our airliners at about Mach .8 for the past almost 50 years, so being able to get there – wherever there is – much faster is still kind of an unfulfilled dream,” said Peter Coen, NASA’s mission integration manager the Quiet Supersonic team. “With the X-59 flying on the Quesst mission, I think we’re ready to break the sound barrier once again.”

FMI: www.nasa.gov