NASA has been on the news late. Recently captured global attention with the launch of the telescope Space James Webb and a trip to his new orbit, while it also became headlines with his artemis mission to the moon and surpassed with his ongoing scientific exploitation on Mars and elsewhere. This week NASA has a little news that keeps alluring even though it is reduced to a denser business. The amazing X-59 Supersonic Technology Jet has reached another milestone on its way to lift a commercial supersonic flight prohibition on the ground.
When people think about supersonic passenger jets, retired Concorde Springs to mind. However, even though Concorde was able to reach the speed of Mach 2.04, it was never allowed to operate at that speed on the ground. It rather blunt full potential, but given that Sonic Booms produced a large amount of sound energy – around 110 decibels – it was understandable, no one wants to constantly hear the sound of their explosions or lightning as they go about their daily business. Jet QuESST X-59 NASA will substantially reduce this sound with what is described as a softer “BUK”.
Engineers at NASA Glenn Research Center recently tested a small scale x-59 model in a supersonic wind tunnel 8- with 6 feet to validate computer simulations about how the form of craft will channel the wind around the design. The aim is to visualize NASA’s boom reduction technology and see if this is synchronized by what is predicted by the NASA computer model. The X-59 model, which is about one leg and long, is placed through weeks of testing with a special camera and sensor that captures shock waves. The captured Schlieren image shows a match in the position and the power of the shock wave that has been predicted by the previous computer model, which is an important milestone to see X-59 flights in the real world.
“With x-59, we want to show that we can reduce the annoying sonic boom into something far more calm, referred to as ‘Sonic Thumps,'” said John Wolter, researching X-59 Sonic Boom Tunnel Tunnel researcher. “The aim is to provide noise and community response data to the regulator, which can produce new rules for supersonic land flights. The test proves that we not only have a quieter plane design, but we also have accurate tools to predict the upcoming noise of aircraft.”
