NASA will begin supersonic tests this month for next-generation passenger aircraft, dubbed & # 39; Son of Concorde & # 39; by aviation enthusiasts.
The aircraft, officially known as the X-59 Quiet Supersonic Transport (QueSST), will shoot boom & # 39; calm & # 39; when it was launched for trial flights on November 5.
The first flight of the X-59, which can fly one day from London to New York in just three hours without issuing a loud sonic explosion, is scheduled for 2021.
The aircraft could be the first commercial supersonic aircraft to carry passengers since the iconic Anglo-French jet, Concorde, was deactivated 15 years ago.
Prior to this, the space agency would use modified fighter jets to check & # 39; acoustic signs & # 39; from the machine to be used on the plane, by sending it to a series of dives.
It has recruited 500 people on the ground to then answer a survey of noise generated by the F / A-18 Hornet, to ensure flights are quiet when flying over Texas.
Before the plane flew into the sky, NASA was investigating whether members of the public were stopped by the noise generated by X-59 when it violated the sound barrier.
The test scheduled for November will see F-18 fighter jets doing diving maneuvers off the coast of Galveston, Texas – an island city near Houston.
The aircraft will quickly drop from almost 50,000 feet (15,200 meters), soon to be supersonic and fire a sound that may have come from the X-59 aircraft.
Noise, which NASA calls & # 39; sonic boom & # 39; will sound more like a car door slamming contrary to an explosion produced by an existing supersonic aircraft.
The agency will measure sound using sensors in the field while gathering public reactions through a series of surveys.
Sasha Ellis, NASA spokesman for the X-59 mission, told Newsweek: "We are only focused on overcoming the challenges of quiet supersonic flight on the ground, reducing the sonic explosion to the sonic boom."
Alexandra Loubeau, the Nasa team leading the research community response to the sonic boom at Langley, said in July: "We will never know exactly what everyone is hearing.
‘We will not have a sound monitor on their shoulders inside their homes.
"But we want to at least have an estimate of the noise level they hear."
The X-59, developed by NASA with the Lockheed Martin aeronautics branch, is scheduled to make its first flight in 2022.
Originally named the Low Flight Flight Demonstrator by Nasa, the agency announced in June that the aircraft would be called the X-59 QueSST forward.
The US Air Force made a name change separately as the history of the American X-aircraft, which began in 1947 with the world's first supersonic aircraft, Bell X-1.
"For everyone working on this important project, this is good news and we are pleased with this appointment," Jaiwon Shin, partner administrator for NASA's Aviation Research Mission Directorate, said in a statement in June.
The X-59 project aims to cut out noisy sonic explosions that echo over cities in the Concorde era, while traveling at 1,100 mph (Mach 1.4 / 1,700 km / h).
A loud explosion that is heard every time Concorde breaks the sound barrier is often described as "annoying" by members of the community, which eventually limited the aircraft to fly over the Atlantic when it began carrying passengers in 1976.
The X-59 was designed to stop shock waves triggered by the movement of airborne particles when a plane breaks down the sound barrier from combining – a phenomenon that gives off sonic sonic explosions from supersonic planes.
Nasa hopes to reduce the sound of the sonic boom to a soft sound, similar to the sound of thunder roaring in the distance or a neighbor closing their door.
"With the X-59 you will still have some shock waves because of the wings on the plane that created the lift and the volume of the aircraft," said Ed Haering, a NASA aerospace engineer at the Armstrong Aviation Research Center in California.
"But the shape of the plane was carefully adjusted so that the vibrations did not join.
& # 39; Instead of getting a loud boom boom, you will get at least two slow thump-thump sounds, if you even hear it at all. & # 39;
The November test will produce a similar shock wave using F-18 fighter jets to maneuver sharply in the air.
The aircraft, pilot by researcher Nasa Jim Less, will dive from 49,000 feet (15,000 m) and go briefly supersonic before leveling at 30,000 feet (9,000 m).
The shockwaves produced by the maneuver will be concentrated directly under the aircraft in the form of a very hard and focused sonic boom pair.
A few miles from diving spots, the sound quickly disappears when they spread and weaken.
"The result in that area: a pair of quiet sonic explosions – a hard hit, really – that people in the field, including NASA researchers and population volunteers, might hardly pay attention to, if they hear something," the agency wrote in a statement .
QueSST is the latest addition to experimental X-series aircraft and rockets, which are used to test and evaluate new technologies and aerodynamic concepts.
Their X designation shows the status of their research mission in the US aircraft naming system.
All of this comes from Chuck Yeager who became the pioneer of sound destroyers, the X-1, a rocket-engined aircraft, designed and built in 1945, which reached speeds of nearly 1,000 miles per hour (1,600 km) in 1948.
NASA's Vision for X-59 is approved In the latest proposed US budget issued by the Office of Management and Budget in Washington, DC, in February.
The space agency earned $ 19.9 billion (£ 14.3bn) for the following year, $ 500 million (£ 360m) more than the previous year.
It is not known how many of these proportions have been allocated for supersonic aircraft projects.
QueSST will be used as a test bed for technology that can make their way into commercial aircraft.
NASA hopes to see the first flight test take place in 2022, with a public reaction test to the last aircraft scheduled for the following year.