NASA’s Mach 4 Supersonic Jet

The Concorde, which used to be a famous fast plane, had to stop flying because it made a really loud noise when it went super fast. This loud noise, called a sonic boom, made a lot of countries, including the United States, say no to planes going that fast over their land.

But scientists have been working hard to find a way to make the loud boom not so loud. NASA’s Quesst Mission is doing that by making a special quiet plane called the X-59. This could help bring back supersonic flight without the noisy boom.

NASA’s big news comes right after they found fifty important routes that go across the ocean, connecting big cities in places like the North Atlantic and Pacific areas. These routes are special because they don’t fly over land where the loud sonic boom could bother people.

NASA wants to use these routes to make a super-fast travel system that links continents and lets people from different parts of the world easily visit each other.

NASA is taking big steps to make the super-fast jet a reality. They’re giving contracts to two groups of top aerospace companies for two years. The first group, led by Boeing and including partners like Exosonic, GE Aerospace, Georgia Tech Aerospace Systems Design Laboratory, and Rolls-Royce North American Technologies, will work on the first contract.

The second group, led by Northrop Grumman Aeronautics Systems and with the help of Blue Ridge Research and Consulting, Boom Supersonic, and Rolls-Royce North American Technologies, will take on the second contract. Both teams will focus on important stuff like how the plane should be shaped, how it should move, where it gets its power, how to keep it from getting too hot, and what cool materials to use so it can go really fast, like Mach 4.