NASA has awarded a $247.5 million contract to Lockheed Martin [LMT] to finish developing and build an airplane prototype that could someday pave the way for quiet, supersonic passenger jets.

Under the contract, announced April 3, the Low-Boom Flight Demonstrator (LBFD) will undergo a critical design review in September 2019 and be assembled at a Lockheed Martin Skunk Works facility in Palmdale, Calif. Flight testing is set to begin in the summer of 2021. 

An artist's rendering of the Low-Boom Flight Demonstrator (Lockheed Martin photo)
An artist’s rendering of the Low-Boom Flight Demonstrator (Lockheed Martin photo)

Initial flights will verify that the single-seat, single-engine plane is safe to fly. The 94-foot-long aircraft will then undergo flight tests to confirm that it indeed produces a low boom, or what NASA calls a “gentle thump.”

In mid-2022, the aircraft will begin flying over populated areas to confirm that people on the ground barely notice the noise. Those flights will initially be out of NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in California.

In 2025, NASA will give its community response data to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in hopes of changing rules banning commercial supersonic travel over land. The now-retired Concorde supersonic airliner was barred from flying over U.S. land due to its explosive-sounding sonic boom.

If those restrictions are removed, “the door will open to an aviation industry ready to enter a new supersonic market in our country and around the world,” said Jaiwon Shin, NASA’s associate administrator for aeronautics. 

The LBFD, which is considered an experimental aircraft, or X-plane, is expected to receive a numerical designation by summer’s end.

The contract builds on preliminary design work that Lockheed Martin did under a $20 million award it received in 2016 from NASA’s Quiet Supersonic Technology (QueSST) effort. While three companies requested preliminary design data in response to the LBFD request for proposals, Lockheed Martin was the sole bidder for the new contract.

Aircraft flying faster than the speed of sound push air molecules aside with such force as to create disturbances or “shock waves.” The LBFD will have a long, slender nose to prevent individual shock waves from each part of the aircraft from combining into massive shock waves that produce sonic booms.

The LBFD will cruise at an altitude at 55,000 feet and a speed of about 940 miles per hour, or Mach 1.4. NASA expects the plane will create a sound as loud as a car door closing – or 75 perceived level decibel — instead of a sonic boom.

Peter Iosifidis, Lockheed Martin’s LBFD program manager, said the plane will incorporate many existing components to lower cost and risk. Those items include the General Electric [GE] F414 engine from the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, landing gear from the F-16 and the back-seat canopy from the T-38 training jet.

“The only thing that is new is the shape,” Iosifidis said at a NASA-led news conference. “There’s really no new development of any major components as part of this effort.”