Gray Creech
Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif.
Phone: 661/276-2662
Kathy Barnstorff
Langley Research Center, Hampton, Va.
Phone: 757/864-9886
Elvia Thompson
NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Phone: 202/358-1696
RELEASE: 05-48
NASA and several industry teams are studying how to design and build
an aircraft that could demonstrate technology to lessen the noise and
window-rattling effects of supersonic flight.
Each team has been awarded approximately one million dollars for a
five-month study. NASA will use the results to define technology and
design requirements for a low sonic boom demonstration aircraft. The
questions the research will answer include whether it's feasible to
modify an existing aircraft to be the quiet boom demonstrator, or
whether a whole new aircraft design will have to be created.
"The concept exploration studies are crucial," said Peter Coen, of the
Langley Research Center at Hampton, Va., and a member of the Sonic
Boom Mitigation Project planning team. "Those studies will determine
whether a low sonic boom demonstrator aircraft can be built at an
affordable cost in a reasonable amount of time."
The Sonic Boom Mitigation Project could begin work on the research
aircraft as early as this fall.
-end-