NASA Awards Quiet Supersonic Passenger Jet Contract to Lockheed Martin

Summary: NASA awards quiet supersonic passenger jet contract to Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company's Palmdale, California, facility, according to NASA administrator Charles Bolden.

a quiet supersonic passenger jet conceptualized by Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company; design goals aim to reduce emissions and transform disturbingly loud sonic booms into soft thumps: NASA/Lockheed Martin, Public Domain, via NASA

On Monday, Feb. 29, 2016, at Virginia’s Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, NASA administrator Charles Bolden officially awards the $20 million contract for completing a preliminary Quiet Supersonic Technology (QueSST) design for a quiet supersonic passenger jet to Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company’s Palmdale, California, facility.

“NASA is working hard to make flight greener, safer and quieter -- all while developing aircraft that travel faster, and building an aviation system that operates more efficiently,” explains Charles Bolden.

The 12th Administrator of NASA situates the agency’s 21st-century aim for the design milestone of a quiet supersonic passenger jet within the historic contributions to supersonic flight achieved by NASA’s predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA).

“To that end, it’s worth noting that it’s been almost 70 years since Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in the Bell X-1 as part of our predecessor agency’s high speed research. Now we’re continuing that supersonic X-plane legacy with this preliminary design award for a quiet supersonic jet with an aim toward passenger flight,” Bolden acknowledges.

The $20 million award for the preliminary design of a quiet supersonic passenger jet is to be distributed to Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company over a period of 17 months. As a major unit within the massive organization of top federal contractor Lockheed Martin Corporation, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company maintains a global presence and includes nine facilities in the United States.

The Lockheed Aeronautics Company site at Palmdale, California, houses the company’s Advanced Development Programs (ADP), informally known as Skunk Works®.

Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company’s Palmdale site leads the $20 million award-winning team. The team’s subcontractors include GE Aviation of Cincinnati and TRI Models Inc. of Huntington Beach, California.

The award-winning team is charged with developing baseline specifications, creating a preliminary design and providing supporting documentation for next-stage, conceptual formulating and planning of a quiet supersonic passenger jet.

“Developing, building and flight testing a quiet supersonic X-plane is the next logical step in our path to enabling the industry’s decision to open supersonic travel for the flying public,” notes Jaiwon Shin, associate administrator for NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission, in NASA’s press release for Feb. 29’s media briefing in Arlington County, Virginia.

The quiet supersonic passenger jet stands as the first in a series of flight demonstration planes, known as X-planes, envisioned in NASA’s New Aviation Horizons initiative. NASA’s ambitious, 10-year initiative for dramatically transforming aircraft design and in-air, on-ground aircraft operation appears in the civilian space agency’s Fiscal Year 2017 budget. The New Aviation Horizons initiative is included in the 2017 Budget Request released by President Barack Obama on Friday, Feb. 9, 2016, and slated for the fiscal year beginning Saturday, Oct. 1, 2016.

In a twist on the tree-falling-in-the-forest question, NASA is upping the agency’s bold commitment to the disruptive aerodynamic science of commercial supersonic transport, known acronymically as SST. NASA reworks the classic forest tree question as:

“If an airplane flies overhead at supersonic speed and no one below can hear it, did it make a sonic boom?”

NASA aims to supplement the world's first quiet supersonic X-plane with a series of green energy-fueled X-planes: NASA/Lillian Gipson, Public Domain, via NASA

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company concept: NASA/Lockheed Martin, Public Domain, via NASA @ http://www.nasa.gov/topics/aeronautics/features/future_airplane_gallery24.html

NASA aims to supplement the world's first quiet supersonic X-plane with a series of green energy-fueled X-planes: NASA/Lillian Gipson, Public Domain, via NASA @ https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-aeronautics-budget-proposes-return-of-x-planes

For further information:

Banke, Jim. "NASA's Sonic Boom Research Takes 'Shape.'" NASA. Nov. 6, 2013. Last updated July 30, 2015.
Available @ http://www.nasa.gov/aero/sonic_boom_takes_shape.html

Dreier, Casey. "First Details of the 2017 NASA Budget Request." The Planetary Society > Blogs. Feb. 9, 2016.
Available @ http://www.planetary.org/blogs/casey-dreier/2016/0209-first-details-of-nasas-fy2017-budget-request.html?

Gipson, Lillian. "NASA Aeronautics Budget Proposes Return of X-Planes." NASA > Aeronautics. Feb. 18, 2016.
Available @ https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-aeronautics-budget-proposes-return-of-x-planes

Gipson, Lillian. "Updated Supersonic." NASA > Aeronautics > Features Supersonic Flight. May 9, 2013.
Available @ http://www.nasa.gov/topics/aeronautics/features/future_airplane_gallery24.html

Harrington, J.D. "NASA Administrator to Make X-Plane Announcement at Reagan National Media Event." NASA > Press Release > Aeronautics. Feb. 25, 2016.
Available @ http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-administrator-to-make-x-plane-announcement-at-reagan-national-media-event

Harrington, J.D., and Kathy Barnstorff. "NASA Begins Work to Build a Quieter Supersonic Passenger Jet." NASA > Press Release > Aeronautics. Feb. 29, 2016.
Available @ http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-begins-work-to-build-a-quieter-supersonic-passenger-jet

Krigsvold, Kevin, ed. "NASA X: Environmentally Responsible Aviation - End of an Era (Pt. 1)." NASA > Mediacast > Green Aviation. Nov. 24, 2015.
Available @ http://www.nasa.gov/mediacast/nasa-x-environmentally-responsible-aviation-end-of-an-era-pt1

Krigsvold, Kevin, ed. "NASA X: Environmentally Responsible Aviation - End of an Era Pt. 2." NASA > Mediacast > Future Aviation. Nov. 24, 2015.
Available @ http://www.nasa.gov/mediacast/nasa-x-environmentally-responsible-aviation-end-of-an-era-pt2

NASA @NASA. "Our @NASAAero budget proposes new era in aviation that's cleaner, quieter & faster." Twitter. Feb. 27, 2016.
Available @ https://twitter.com/NASA/status/703641753803431938

Rugg, Karen and Jim Banke. "NASA Aeronautics Budget  Proposes Return of X-Planes." NASA > Feature > Aeronautics. Feb. 18, 2016.
Available @ http://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-aeronautics-budget-proposes-return-of-x-planes