NASA Flights Examine Shock-Sensing Probe Enhancements for Future X-59 Research

A recent flight test series is allowing NASA to examine improvements made to a flight instrument, designed to measure the unique shock waves from the agency’s X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology aircraft. The flights, conducted at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in California, focused on the ability of the shock-sensing probe to measure shock waves, which are produced when an aircraft flies faster than the speed of sound. Mounted on the nose of a NASA F-15 research aircraft, the probe measured the shocks from a NASA F-18 using techniques that will be flown when the X-59 undergoes its future acoustic validation phase of quiet supersonic flight.