Prerana Toshniwal, Pune
A new era is about to begin in the aviation industry as NASA comes closer to the launch of Lockheed Martin’s X-59 Quesst, AKA “The Son of Concorde, a suborbital flight. X-59 works on supersonic technology, which means it can fly faster than the speed of sound. As a part of NASA’s Quest mission, which aims to show that the aircraft can fly faster than the speed of sound (or Mach 1) without producing the loud sonic booms typically produced by supersonic aircraft, this achievement marks the beginning of a series of ground tests to make sure the X-59 is safe and prepared to fly.
The X-59, which is due to make its maiden experimental test flight, has a peak speed of 1500 mph despite being smaller and less powerful than the Concorde. A typical airplane travels at 880-926 mph. For instance, a 22-hour journey from London to Sydney would ordinarily take 22 hours, but the X-59 travel duration is only 2 hours. Another noteworthy example is the flight from New York to Shanghai, which is scheduled to take 15 hours but will be reduced to 39 minutes.
According to NASA, although previous supersonic aircraft produced tremendous sonic booms, which was one of the reasons Concorde was canceled, the X-59 is meant to produce merely a mild thud. It should also be remembered that Concorde was phased out because of prohibitions in some nations.
“NASA will then fly the X-59 over several communities to gather data on human responses to the sound generated during supersonic flight,” officials said in the statement from the space agency. “NASA will deliver that data set to U.S. and international regulators to possibly enable commercial supersonic flight over land.”
The manufacturers for the Quesst mission are Lockheed Martin Corp. and Skunk Works. The project was started in February 2016, delivered by 2021, and is finally ready to take its first experimental flight in 2023.