NASA has hailed progress in developing “quiet” supersonic travel technology on January 25. Together with Lockheed Martin, the US space agency is working on a new jet capable of surpassing the speed of sound without generating the infamous sonic boom.’ Called X-59, the new jet is being developed by Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works in Palmdale, California.
Any object traveling through the atmosphere faster than the speed of sound generates a shock wave that translates into a loud sound similar to an explosion or a thunderclap called a sonic boom, which affects vast, often heavily populated areas many kilometers away from the aircraft itself.
The booms were a big hurdle for commercial supersonic flights and forced many flights of Concordes – the British-French turbojet-powered supersonic passenger airliners operated between 1976 and 2003 – to slow down over land to below the speed of sound.