An XB-1 aircraft’s shock waves created during a supersonic flight have been captured using specialized ground-based photography. XB-1 made history as the first privately developed civil supersonic aircraft to break to sound barrier in the United States.
On February 10th, it achieved another successful flight. The U.S Boom Supersonic collaborated with NASA on the second flight to obtain specialized photographs of the supersonic test. NASA teams collected data on XB-1’s acoustic signature at one location on the flight route. Boom analysis found that no audible sonic boom reached the ground as the jet flew at supersonic speeds.
The XB-1 team rapidly developed a avionics software to guide the pilot to the specific points in space that XB-1 would have to fly through in order make the sun eclipsed using way-points computed by NASA. To capture the imagery, NASA used ground telescopes with special filters that detect air distortions, such as shock waves, around the supersonic aircraft.
Efforts conducted by both NASA and Boom while modeling the expected flight parameters of XB-1’s supersonic flights estimated a very high likelihood of operating at Mach cutoff, in which a sonic boom refracts in the atmosphere and never reaches the ground. This effect is achieved by breaking the sound barrier at a high enough altitude, with exact speeds varying based on atmospheric conditions.
RELATED STORIES:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nasa-photo-civilian-jet-breaking-sound-barrier-boom-supersonic/
https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/03/travel/boom-supersonic-nasa-photo-sound-barrier-broken/index.html
https://petapixel.com/2025/03/04/nasa-captures-photo-of-supersonic-jet-breaking-the-sound-barrier/
TAKE ACTION:
