NASA Awards Lockheed Martin Supersonic Demo Contract | Aviation International News

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NASA Awards Lockheed Martin Supersonic Demo Contract

The Low-Boom Flight Demonstrator will test community reaction to a softer thump from supersonic flight over land.

Lockheed will build the Low-Boom Flight Demonstrator that NASA will fly to measure the noise signature and community response to supersonic booms over land in the U.S. (Photo: Kerry Lynch/AIN)

By Kerry Lynch • Editor, AIN monthly magazine

April 3, 2018

NASA is moving into the next phase of its supersonic research, awarding a $247.5 million contract to Lockheed Martin Aeronautics to build an X-plane called the Low-Boom Flight Demonstrator (LBFD). The 94-foot-long LBFD will be used to test new technologies that would result in a low-boom, or softer “thump,” as NASA officials describe it, rather than the traditional sonic boom that has accompanied supersonic speeds and served as the environmental barrier to such flight over land.

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