NASA Hires Lockheed Martin to Build Quiet Supersonic X-Plane
April 3rd, 2018Via: space.com:
NASA has taken a huge leap forward in its quest to create an aircraft that can travel faster than the speed of sound without causing the ear-splitting sonic boom.
The space agency announced today (April 2) that it has awarded the aerospace company Lockheed Martin a $247.5 million contract to design and build a new X-plane, known as the Low-Boom Flight Demonstrator (LBFD), which may soar silently over the U.S. by 2022.
Today’s announcement comes less than two weeks after President Donald Trump signed a federal budget for FY2019 that fully funds the LBFD. In his budget proposal, Trump noted that the X-plane “would open a new market for U.S. companies to build faster commercial airliners, creating jobs and cutting cross-country flight times in half.”
