Lockheed Martin Skunk Works to build X-Plane for Nasa

Lockheed Martin Skunk Works has won a contract from Nasa to design, build and flight test the Low-Boom Flight Demonstrator X-plane.

Under the latest deal, Lockheed Martin Skunk Works will build a full-scale experimental aircraft that will feature a preliminary design developed by the company under Nasa’s Quiet Supersonic Technology (QueSST) effort.

The aircraft is set to be built at Lockheed Martin Skunk Works’ facility in Palmdale, California, US. It is scheduled to take its first flight in 2021.

Once developed, the X-plane will be able to cruise at 55,000ft at a speed of 1.4 Mach. It will generate a gentle supersonic heartbeat instead of a sonic boom.

Development of the X-plane is set to help Nasa establish an acceptable supersonic noise standard to comply with current regulations that ban commercial supersonic travel over land.

Nasa Aeronautics associate administrator Jaiwon Shin said: “It is super exciting to be back designing and flying X-planes at this scale. Our long tradition of solving the technical barriers of supersonic flight to benefit everyone continues.”

Lockheed Martin Skunk Works was selected by Nasa in 2016 for the development of a preliminary design for the supersonic X-plane flight demonstrator.

In a separate development, Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory awarded a contract to Space Systems / Loral (SSL) to design and build critical equipment for a spacecraft that will explore one of Jupiter’s moons, Europa.

The Europa Clipper spacecraft is scheduled to be launched in the 2020s. It will be designed to carry out repeated investigative flybys of Europa, which is believed to have an ocean of liquid water beneath its crust, potentially harbouring conditions suitable for life.