Lockheed Martin to build NASA’s jet

— NASA has inked a deal with Lockheed Martin to develop a supersonic “X-plane” that could break the sound barrier without a sonic boom, officials said Tuesday.

The $247.5 million contract allows for the design, building and testing of a plane that would make its first test flight in 2021, NASA said.

The experimental plane “will cruise at 55,000 feet (16,764 meters) at a speed of about 940 mph (1,513 kph),” the U.S. space agency said in a statement.

The goal is to enable quieter supersonic flight and create “new commercial cargo and passenger markets in faster-than-sound air travel,” NASA said.

AP-Yonhap Demonstrators extend a banner in the colors of Brazil’s flag and that reads in Portuguese: “Car Wash” during a protest against Brazil’s former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Tuesday. Brazil’s attorney...