Tag: Supersonic Transport

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Lockheed Martin wins NASA’s nod for supersonic jet

Low-Boom Flight Demonstrator
An artist’s conception shows the Low-Boom Flight Demonstrator at work. (NASA Illustration)

NASA says Lockheed Martin will be its partner in building a supersonic test plane that’s designed to muffle sonic booms and clear the way for a new boom in faster-than-sound passenger flights.

California-based Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. won the $247.5 million contract to build the Low-Boom Flight Demonstrator, or LBFD, after putting in the sole bid for the project, NASA officials said today.

NASA’s acting administrator, Robert Lightfoot, said boom-reducing aerodynamics will be a “game-changer” for civilian flight — a view that was voiced by other officials as well.

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Super-quiet supersonic jet design approved

Supersonic plane
The preliminary design for NASA’s Low Boom Flight Demonstration aircraft has been cleared for takeoff. (NASA / Lockheed Martin Illustration)

NASA says it’s cleared a significant milestone on the path to reviving supersonic passenger jet travel in the U.S. with the completion of the preliminary design review for its low-boom experimental airplane.

The Low-Boom Flight Demonstration X-plane, or LBFD, is designed to create a soft “thump” rather than the loud sonic boom typically associated with supersonic airplanes. The boom is what led federal authorities to ban supersonic passenger flight over land in 1973.

The initial design stage for the LBFD is known as Quiet Supersonic Technology, or QueSST. NASA’s plan, drawn up with Lockheed Martin as the lead contractor, calls for transforming QueSST into the LBFD and flying the plane over communities to collect the data that regulators would need to ease the ban.

The June 22 preliminary design review was a key step in the process.

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Boom picks up $33M to build supersonic jet

Boom supersonic jet
Boom Technology’s full-scale supersonic jet would carry 40 passengers. (Boom Photo)

Colorado-based Boom Technology has raised $33 million in a Series A round to build and fly its first supersonic jet, a one-third-scale prototype known as the XB-1 or “Baby Boom.” Testing the XB-1 would blaze the trail for a full-scale jet capable of taking 40 passengers from New York to London in less than three and a half hours for a $2,500 one-way ticket.

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Spike is still up in the air on supersonic jet factory

Spike Aerospace jet
An artist’s conception shows Spike Aerospace’s S-512 supersonic jet in flight. (Credit: Spike Aerospace)

LYNNWOOD, Wash. – Boston-based Spike Aerospace is moving a bit more slowly than planned on its process to pick the site for a supersonic jet factory, the company’s top executive said today.

Washington state is still in the mix, but so are seven other states, said Vik Kachoria, Spike’s president and CEO.

“We’re not moving to Washington state just yet,” Kachoria said here at the Governor’s Aerospace Summit, presented by the Aerospace Futures Alliance of Washington. “Each region offers something interesting that we want to explore.”

At one time, the company had hoped to start narrowing down the field from Washington, Oregon, California, Texas, Florida, Massachusetts and the Carolinas by the end of this year. But Kachoria told GeekWire that the “down-select” would have to wait until 2017.

He also the schedule for building a subscale supersonic demonstrator would slip from mid-2018 to early 2019.

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