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NASA & Lockheed Martin Building Quieter Supersonic Aircraft

NASA awards a contract for the design, building and testing of a supersonic aircraft to Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company of Palmdale, California.Photo: NASA
NASA awards a contract for the design, building and testing of a supersonic aircraft to Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company of Palmdale, California.Photo: NASA

NASA and Lockheed Martin are teaming up to explore faster-than-sound passenger and cargo air travel.

Supersonic aircraft are banned from flying over land because as they break the sound barrier the planes create a loud sonic boom.

NASA has been studying sonic booms since the 1940s.  The agency recently awarded Lockheed Martin a $247 million contract to build a new spacecraft that would produce merely a thump instead of a boom.

The project would fly the new super-sonic, ultra-quiet plane over cities across the U.S. to gather sound levels.

NASA will give that data to regulators as they consider new sound-based rules for spacecraft. If it’s quiet enough, faster-than-sound airplanes could be coming to the U.S. passenger and cargo market in the 2020s.

Brendan Byrne is WMFE's Assistant News Director, managing the day-to-day operations of the WMFE newsroom, editing daily news stories, and managing WMFE's internship program.

Byrne also hosts WMFE's weekly radio show and podcast "Are We There Yet?" which explores human space exploration.