NASA is building a hypersonic spacecraft that will travel from New York to Paris in one hour

NASA unveiled its X-59 supersonic aircraft, co-developed with Lockheed Martin. A video shows the plane leaving a hangar to undergo ground testing. The X-59 is a special research craft designed with technology that reduces the volume of the sonic boom of supersonic flight from the ground. The design is specially designed to smoothly enter the atmosphere and avoid sonic booms.

NASA’s Questt mission, with its silent supersonic X-59 aircraft, aims to provide data to regulators that could help change the rules of supersonic ground flight. The ship plans to exceed Mach 1, the speed at which sound travels through the air: that is, 340 meters per second or 1,235 kilometers per hour. But at Mach 5.5 that is to say almost 6800 kilometers per hour, a speed that It ceases to be supersonic to become hypersonic.

The X-59 is expected just generate a knock similar to the sound of a car door slamming nearby, that is, only 75 decibels perceived level (PLdB). That makes it in the fastest reusable aircraft in the worldso a flight from New York to London would take less than 60 minutes.

With regard to these aircraft, the Hermeus company in the United States announced that next year it will launch a new supersonic aircraft (Hermeus Quarterhouse) that could fly from New York to Paris in just one hour. One has been made series of tests for subjecting materials and equipment to high speed conditions. With the contract that Hermeus won for $ 30 million from the US Air Force, the company wants to build and fly three versions of the aircraft.

NASA detects potential for hypersonic transoceanic flight

The first flight is scheduled for 2024 and the final investment, according to the calculations of the enterprising company itself, could amount to about 100 million dollars.

According to the company, the speed will come from there a unique engine configuration, a turbine-based combined cycle propulsion system (TBCC).

The Quarterhorse will fly autonomously, so that the development team can pilot prototypes and learn from them without endangering the lives of the pilots. After the 2024 flight, a medium cargo version will be made in 2025 and a larger commercial passenger version in 2029.

Hermeus’ goal is to have commercial aircraft up and running by the mid-2030s. “The challenge is not to reach hypersonic speeds – rockets and spacecraft regularly do that. The difficulty is in building something that can withstand these speeds and stresses and that is reusable.says Luca Maddalena, a hypersonics researcher at the University of Texas at Arlington. (JO)

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