High-Speed Flight Project Overview

The High-Speed Flight (HSF) project develops technologies that make high-speed, airbreathing, commercial flight possible from Mach 1 to Mach 5 and above. It creates tools, technologies, and knowledge that will help eliminate today’s technical barriers to practical supersonic flight, most notably sonic boom.

HSF supports the X-59 quiet supersonic vehicle testing by gathering acoustic data and validating tools that predict in-flight sonic booms. The project conducts fundamental and applied research that explores key challenges in reusable, hypersonic flight. It also evaluates the potential for future commercial hypersonic vehicles, including reusable access to space and commercial point-to-point missions.

HSF maintains unique facilities, laboratories, and subject matter experts who investigate research areas to solve the challenges of hypersonic flight. The project coordinates closely with partners in industry, academia, and other government agencies to leverage relevant data sets to validate computational models.

high-speed flight, supersonic, hypersonic, sonic boom, x-59, quiet supersonic, acoustic data, computational models, point-to-point, reusable vehicles