Page 4 - Aerotech News and Review, April 2, 2021

Cutting edge ground recorders selected to measure

future X-59 QueSST flights

For the deserts of Southern Califor- it’s designed to be.
nia, the major milestones of aviation To do this, NASA will measure the
have long been marked by the unique sound of the sonic thumps in the Mojave
sights, and sounds, of flight. Desert using cutting edge technology
From the late Chuck Yeager’s break- — a brand new, state-of-the-art ground
ing of the sound barrier in 1947, to the recording system for a brand new, state-
space shuttles’ approach and landing at of-the-art X-plane.
NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research NASA has contracted Crystal Instru-
Center (then Dryden) in Edwards, and ments of Santa Clara, California to de-
through today, one recognizable sound liver a high-fidelity sonic boom — and
is the sonic boom — a loud, some- soon to be, a quiet sonic thump — re-
times startling event that we hear on cording system, capable of providing
the ground when an aircraft overhead the data necessary for the agency to vali-
flies faster than the speed of sound, also date the acoustic signature of the X-59.
called supersonic speed. “This will be the first time that we
NASA, for decades, has led the ef- have a single system across NASA to do
fort to study sonic booms, the loudness this research, and it will incorporate a lot
of which are considered the key bar- of newer technologies to allow us to get
rier to enabling a future for overland, this done,” said Larry Cliatt, NASA’s
commercial supersonic aircraft. That tech lead for the acoustic validation
future will be closer to reality when the phase of the NASA’s Low-Boom Flight
agency’s X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Tech- Demonstration mission. “I consider it
nology (QueSST) airplane takes to those the next generation of sonic boom, and NASA photograph by Joe Ponthiex
familiar skies in 2022, taking the first soon to be quieter sonic thump, record- NASA’s X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology aircraft, or QueSST, is designed to fly faster than the speed of sound without
steps to demonstrating the ability to fly ing systems.” producing a loud, disruptive sonic boom, which is typically heard on the ground below aircraft flying at such speeds.
at supersonic speeds while reducing the NASA will utilize the Crystal Instru- Instead, with the X-59, people on the ground will hear nothing more than a quiet sonic thump — if they hear anything
sonic boom to a significantly quieter ments Ground Recording System, or at all. The X-59 will fly over communities around the United States to demonstrate this technology, but first, NASA will
sonic thump. CI-GRS for short, to gather time, wave- need to validate the X-plane’s acoustic signature, using a ground recording system.
While NASA will fly the X-59 over form, and spectral data related to sonic
communities around the U.S. as early booms and sonic thumps. The CI-GRS With this technology, NASA will can distinguish a low-amplitude sonic perceived sound level, which is the cur-
as 2024 to analyze the public’s percep- will also feature the ability for NASA to have the ability to extract, review, and thump from the X-59 among other am- rently accepted measure for sonic boom
tion and acceptability of quiet super- install custom software and algorithms analyze specific data from a recording. bient sounds. That software will also loudness.
sonic flight, the agency will first need to perform various specialized opera- For example, the CI-GRS will have the be able to calculate a number of differ- “What we are building is a data ac-
to prove that the X-plane is as quiet as tions for real-time sonic thump analysis. capability to accommodate software that ent types of acoustic metrics, including See RECORDERS, Page 5

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