NANA's new mission is to fly faster than the speed of sound, but without all the racket.
The space agency has hired Lockheed Martin to build a supersonic passenger jet that would quietly break the sound barrier without the sonic boom.
NASA is calling it the Low-Boom Flight Demonstration, but it's rolls off the tongue a little easier (and sounds cooler) to call it the X-Plane.
Imagine this: traveling safely at the speed of sound, getting to your destination faster & flying with significantly less noise. Our @NASAAero innovators are creating an experimental aircraft that could make supersonic flight over land possible. Learn more https://t.co/IbPICaeEJn pic.twitter.com/t3pMbTQLD7
— NASA (@NASA) April 3, 2018
The experimental aircraft would be created to fly over land, and not just over restricted military flight corridors.
It will be able to cruise at 55,000 feet at a speed of about 940 miles per hour, and create a sound that's as loud as a car door closing.
That's not much of a boom at all.
The X-Plane is projected to be built by 2021 and construction of the plane will happen at the Lockheed Martin facility in Palmdale, California, which is where the U-2 and SR-71 Blackbird spy planes were built.
