NASA wants to bring back supersonic commercial flights, and announced Monday it is awarding Lockheed Martin a contract to develop the proper aircraft.
According to USA Today, the Concorde, which operated transatlantic flights from 1976 to 2003, flew at 1,300 mph, almost twice the 768 mph speed of sound.
Because the sonic boom it created was too disturbing to people on the ground, however, the Concorde only operated over the ocean.
Nowadays, NASA believes that it can correct the noise with a new, quieter design. It calls that design Quiet Supersonic Technology, or "QueSST" for short.
A QueSST jet would not produce a sonic boom, but rather a quieter supersonic "heartbeat" sound, similar to a thump or a throb.
NASA has awarded Lockheed Martin $20 million to develop so-called X-planes that conform to QueSST standards over the course of 17 months.
The hope is that the X-planes will ultimately fly at Mach 1.4, or roughly 1,100 mph. While that's slower than the Concorde used to be, it is nearly twice the speed of standard commercial jetliners — which fly at roughly 600 mph — and the big advantage would be that the X-plane could fly over land.
"Developing, building and flight testing a quiet supersonic X-plane is the next logical step in our path to enabling the industry's decision to open supersonic travel for the flying public," Jaiwon Shin, associate administrator for NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission,
said in a statement.
"NASA is working hard to make flight greener, safer and quieter – all while developing aircraft that travel faster, and building an aviation system that operates more efficiently," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden.
"To that end, it’s worth noting that it's been almost 70 years since Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in the Bell X-1 as part of our predecessor agency's high speed research. Now we’re continuing that supersonic X-plane legacy with this preliminary design award for a quieter supersonic jet with an aim toward passenger flight."