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Supersonic planes are super fast, but also super loud. Could a fighter jet do it without the bang? The American space agency NASA says: yes. On Friday, together with defense company Lockheed Martin, she wants to present the jet aircraft ‘X-59’, which was developed as part of the Quest program (stands for Quiet SuperSonic Technology).

A sonic boom becomes a sonic puff

“The X-59, built by Lockheed Martin, is the heart of NASA’s Quest mission,” the agency wrote on its homepage. The mission is intended to investigate sound and “help reduce the sonic boom caused by supersonic flight to a supersonic puff.”

The problem with the supersonic idea: The US and many other countries around the world ban commercial supersonic flights over their airspace. That’s why NASA says it will soon test the new plane over populated areas of the United States and get public reactions to the sounds. These would then be submitted to international regulators for evaluation, it is said. All in the hope of one day being able to fly a passenger plane at supersonic speeds again.

Commercial supersonic aviation came to a sudden halt 23 years ago when an Air France Concorde crashed shortly after takeoff from Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport in July 2000. At that moment, all 109 passengers and four people on the ground were killed. Previously, the Concorde shuttled back and forth between Paris, London and New York for almost a quarter of a century.

This is the supersonic jet aircraft “X-59”

At 30 meters, the ‘X-59’ is only half as long as the Concorde (62 meters). It must be able to travel at an altitude of about 16 kilometers at a speed of 1,500 kilometers per hour. For comparison: regular passenger planes fly on average a maximum of 900 km/h. Lockheed Martin promises that the sound created when the sound barrier is broken will sound something like a car door being slammed shut.

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