Last year NASA awarded contracts to three teams at Lockheed Martin, Northrop Gurmman and Boeing to create a perfect plane for 2025, silent and with low fuel consumption. Here is what they came up with, which could enter service in 2025.
These are NASA requirements:
And each design has to fly up to 85 percent of the speed of sound; cover a range of approximately 7,000 miles; and carry between 50,000 and 100,000 pounds of payload, either passengers or cargo.
The first one is the proposal by Lockheed. This one is by Northrop Grumman:
And here’s the Boeing one:
Quite different approaches to the same problem. We will see what really happens when the release date comes. [NASA]