Jane Edwards
A Lockheed Martin-led team has been awarded a potential 17-month, $20 million task order to perform preliminary design work on NASA’s Quiet Supersonic Transport X-plane aircraft.
NASA awarded the task order for the “low boom” flight QueSST passenger jet under the Basic and Applied Aerospace Research and Technology contract and as part of its New Aviation Horizons program, the space agency said Tuesday.
The New Aviation Horizons initiative seeks to reduce emissions, noise and fuel consumption of planes through aircraft design innovations.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden announced the contract award during an event at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Virginia Monday.
“NASA is working hard to make flight greener, safer and quieter – all while developing aircraft that travel faster, and building an aviation system that operates more efficiently,” Bolden said.
Lockheed will perform contract work with subcontractors Tri Models and GE Aviation at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia.
Work covers initial aircraft design, development of aircraft baseline requirements and documentation support for planning and concept formulation.
NASA said a future competition will cover the succeeding work of design validation and construction of the aircraft.
