NASA to Announce Quiet Supersonic Research Flights in Galveston

HOUSTON, April 12, 2018 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA will hold a news conference at 9 a.m. CDT Tuesday, April 17, to unveil plans to conduct a series of supersonic technology research flights over the Galveston, Texas, area, in support of the agency's Commercial Supersonic Technology Project.

The flights, which will take off from nearby Ellington Airport, will take place in November 2018, and feature a NASA F/A-18 aircraft performing a series of supersonic dive maneuvers off the coast. This will produce a sound that will mimic the predicted sound signatures of NASA's recently announced Low Boom Flight Demonstration X-plane, or LBFD.

This flight campaign will help NASA determine the best way to collect community response data for future supersonic flights, once NASA's LBFD aircraft is ready to fly.

The press conference will take place at Scholes International Airport, located at 2115 Terminal Drive in Galveston.

Participants include:

• Peter Coen, project manager of NASA's Commercial Supersonic Technology Project.
• Melanie Saunders, acting deputy center director for NASA's Johnson Space Center.
• Jim Yarbrough, Mayor of Galveston

Media planning to attend in person must contact the Johnson Space Center newsroom at 281-483-5111 before 4 p.m. April 16.

For more information about NASA's aeronautics research, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/aero

For more information about NASA's Commercial Supersonic Technology project, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/subject/7566/supersonic-flight/

SOURCE NASA