NASA/Lockheed Martin X-59A Quiet Supersonic Technology (QueSST)

NASA has successfully tested a large microphone array in California’s Mojave Desert as part of a flight series in preparation for the agency’s quiet supersonic X-plane, the X-59.

Flying at speeds faster than Mach 1, the speed of sound, typically produces a loud sonic boom heard on the ground below. NASA’s X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology X-plane, or X-59 QueSST for short, will fly over select communities around the U.S. to demonstrate the ability to reduce that sonic boom to a quiet thump. The data from these flights will be turned over to the Federal Aviation Administration to possibly establish new sound-based rules for supersonic flight over land. This could open the door to future faster-than-sound commercial cargo and passenger air travel.

Before these community overflights take place, however, the X-59 will first undergo an acoustic validation phase, during which NASA will deploy an approximately 30-mile-long array of specially-configured microphones to measure the X-59’s thumps, to verify that they are as quiet as predicted.

The recently-completed Carpet Determination In Entirety Measurements flight series, or CarpetDIEM, was NASA’s “first practice” for the X-59’s acoustic validation flights.

 
With all due respect, why the interest in supersonic commercial flight? Again, respectfully, will the peasants be able to afford this or is this just for the rich? I understand military applications but I don't see the need in the civilian sector.
 
How many technologies ubiquitous today were once only toys of the rich when first introduced?
 
It would seem logical that hypersonic would be the next step rather than repeating supersonic airframes.
 
I really doubt anything hypersonic will appear in the commercial sector.
 
If anything hypersonic appears in the commercial sector, it will be something like the SpaceX Starship, used for suborbital flight. Which, IIRC, Musk has proposed, but I doubt it's very cost effective.
 
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Cost effective. In the end that's all that matters. Getting one pound into near space, LEO, etc., that's all that matters.
 
With all due respect, why the interest in supersonic commercial flight? Again, respectfully, will the peasants be able to afford this or is this just for the rich? I understand military applications but I don't see the need in the civilian sector.

There's some interest for supersonic flight for commercial use. Engines and aerodynamics have gotten to the point where economical near-transonic flight speeds are viable and the industry in general would like to proceed with very near super-sonic or supersonic flight designs. But, speeds around that point mean thing are going to either go supersonic on occasion or they may actually be designed to go supersonic and so the idea is NASA will test out 'quiet' supersonic shapes since regulations require avoidance of sonic booms over or near inhabited and built up areas.

Randy
 
Cost effective. In the end that's all that matters. Getting one pound into near space, LEO, etc., that's all that matters.

Far too many questions of why and complaining about the cost is why we haven’t advanced in certain areas as fast as we should. Especially as time and again history has proven such claims to be ill founded.

One good thing about Elon Musk is he often appears to place both in their proper place.
 
I really doubt anything hypersonic will appear in the commercial sector.

REL still very much have this in their roadmap, as they would do being as it’s been there since the very beginning for them.
 
Again, cost for materials is the limiting factor. Hypersonic aircraft sounds like fun and would be interesting, but cost effective? No. And I mean by bean counters who don't care about the difference between an aircraft and a similar volume of lumber.
 
Again, cost for materials is the limiting factor. Hypersonic aircraft sounds like fun and would be interesting, but cost effective? No. And I mean by bean counters who don't care about the difference between an aircraft and a similar volume of lumber.

Actually to be fair to the bean-counter's there's a huge difference because the aircraft is going to have totally different economics over its lifetime than the volume of lumber :)

Hypersonic's has many of the same hype and issues that come with supersonic flight. They don't integrate well with high volume sub-sonic traffic, they have a naturally higher operations and maintenance cost, and they are likely going to run into multiple regulator issues. Now any and all of this can be solved, eventually, if you throw enough effort and money at the problems but that runs into the issue of a viable and sustainable market for the service advantages while avoiding the disadvantages in an economic manner. Cost effective goes further than the concern of the "bean-counters" in a sucessful business.

Randy
 
Major remaining parts delivered (look at that nose!):

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New milestone with wing skin pannels sealed:

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The stereoscopic projector mount is not the least interesting in the picture (notice the slaved dual camera set also)...
 
Definitely, yes. (great pic- you can see the projected graphics cut by the operator harm).
 
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NASA had to determine a target noise level before NASA’s X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology aircraft could be designed to reduce a loud sonic boom to a quiet thump. To do this, NASA used traditional research aircraft to perform a low-boom dive maneuver, as seen here from the cockpit of a NASA F/A-18.

Traditional research aircraft typically produce a disruptive sonic boom when flying supersonic, or faster than sound, but NASA’s low-boom dive maneuver produces a sonic thump, similar to what we envision the X-59 will sound like. This dive reduces the strength of the shockwaves produced and perceived intensity of those shockwaves, making it much quieter for people on the ground.

The low-boom dive is a key tool in NASA’s supersonic research and the Low-Boom Flight Demonstration mission.

View: https://www.facebook.com/nasaarmstrong/videos/293072715583724/
 
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In this picture, the black rectangle panels are the air intakes for the environmental control system (ECS) that regulates the temperature, cabin pressure, and air distribution. The silver grate located at the rear of one of the ECS panels is the exhaust — both of these sections are traditionally housed on the underside of the plane. By placing these features on top of the X-59 wing, the wing blocks and prevents the ECS exhaust from interacting with the shock waves on the bottom of the aircraft. This unique design approach to re-shaping the shock wave pattern substantially reduces the sonic boom to more of a sonic “thump” when it reaches the ground.
 
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Cyrano just got a new ride:

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The team has made significant progress on the X-59 QueSST assembly. In late October, they pulled the aircraft away from the jig support system. The jig, which is similar to scaffolding, helped ensure all of the aircraft’s hardware was placed together correctly throughout the manufacturing process.
 
Cyrano just got a new ride:

View attachment 663821

Holy.. what a super spike nose! No problem structurally? Titanium?
 

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