NASA's X-59 Aircraft - Supersonic Air Travel

NASA's X-59 Aircraft -  Commercial Supersonic Air Travel

Context:- The X-59, which is smaller and slower than Concorde, has a maximum speed of around 1,500 kph and is estimated to cut travel time from New York to London by about 3 hours and 30 minutes.

Background 

Move over Concorde, the world’s fastest commercial aircraft, which set many records in air travel when it was introduced some 20 years ago. The aviation industry is gearing to welcome an era of ultrafast air travel with NASA coming up with the X-59, dubbed the 'Son of Concorde', an experimental supersonic aircraft good to go for its first test flight.

Study 

Suborbital Flights: Insight

Latest research by Britain's Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) claims that by the year 2033, a flight from London to Sydney, which as of now requires 22 hours, could be decreased to only two hours.

Suborbital flights would employ rockets, quite similar to Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin and Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic jet programme. These flights would ferry passengers at a surprising speed of 3500 miles per hour (5632 kph) resulting in the saving of so much time. For example, an individual can go from New York to Shanghai in a short time, rather than the ongoing 15-hour drive. A trip from New York to London, for instance, can be finished within an hour.

X-59 is equipped with ‘Quiet Supersonic Technology' which is designed to turn the sonic boom brought about by breaking the sound wall into a 'sonic thump'. When the aircraft is ready for flight, the single-seat X-59 will be barely short of 100 feet (30.5m) long, with a hard-swept wingspan of just 29.5 feet (9m) and a height of only 14 feet (4.25 meters). It will cruise at 55,000 feet and will have a cruising speed of Mach 1.4.

NASA’s experimental ‘silent’ supersonic jet X-59 moves into flight line

Background 

When the Concorde made its first transatlantic flight in 1976, it was supposed to usher in an era of supersonic flight. But by 2003, the Concorde had flown its last commercial flight. It was plagued by many issues, including high costs of operation and how noisy it was. Now, NASA is using an experimental supersonic aeroplane to tackle the noisy part.

NASA said that the move from the site of construction to the flight line is one of the many milestones ahead of X-59’s first flight. The aircraft will first have to go through a series of ground tests so that teams can ensure it is safe to fly.

The aircraft is designed to demonstrate technology that will allow supersonic flight while reducing the sonic boom to a “quiet sonic thump,” according to NASA

“Sonic boom” refers to the sound that is associated with shock waves created when an object travels faster than the speed of sound. The sound that you hear when a whip is cracked is like a miniature version of the sonic boom. But the sonic boom of flights can generate massive amounts of energy, sounding like an explosion or a thunderclap.