A Turbine, a Superfactory, and the World’s Most Advanced Foundry—Oh my

Today Boom unveils three major milestones on the path to delivering the world’s most advanced turbine at scale: shipping of the first turbine core, a 2GW Superpower Superfactory in South Denver, and the world’s most advanced digital foundry—to cast single crystal turbine blades and vanes.

Boom's first turbine core ships today

In 1882, Thomas Alva Edison flipped the switch on the world’s first electric grid in New York City. Two decades later, the Wright Brothers flew the first airplane. And for the next few decades, the world enjoyed rapid progress in energy production and speed—which together powered a rapidly improving world. People connected across the globe as cities were lit, hospitals were electrified, and we were able to heat and cool our homes. Long before EVs, electrification meant dishwashers, clothes dryers, and the mass deployment of refrigerators and air conditions. Regardless of what was happening outside, we could stay warm or cool inside. And things kept getting better—rapidly. Our prosperity increased along with our energy production and with the speed of transit.

Then in 1973, something strange and frightful happened: we banned supersonic flight in the US, and at the same time halted what had been exponential growth in energy production per capita. Since then, we’ve enjoyed progress mainly in low-energy technologies — like computers, the internet, and biotech. But higher energy technologies, like flying cars, planetary weather control, and, yes, supersonic passenger flight, haven’t come to pass. And superintelligent AI—which promises to be the greatest amplifier of human ability yet—requires enormous amounts of power.

The natural question is “why did we stop” — which we will leave for another time, but for today, the question is, “why not start anew?”

In perhaps a poetic moment, the same technology, team and culture can attack both of these civilization-scale problems—simulataneously accelerating energy and transit.

Four years ago, Boom and Rolls-Royce had our infamous breakup—Rolls would not produce the jet turbine to power our Overture supersonic airliner. And Boom embarked on a journey to make the engine from scratch, ourselves. What looked like a near-fatal blow turned out to be the best gift we’d ever received, paving the way for Boomless Cruise aboard Overture and the world’s most advanced modular power turbine.

Superpower’s First Turbine Core

In December, Superpower was an idea. Less than a year later, we are rolling out our first fully-assembled prototype turbine core, the same turbine core that will power both our Symphony supersonic engine and our Superpower 42MW natural gas turbine.

This core, which we call “sprint core” encompasses the most difficult turbomachinery that goes into both products: a six stage high compressor made of integrally machined “blisks” forged of high-grade stainless steel and nickel superalloys, an advanced 24-nozzle low-emissions high-efficiency combustor, and a single stage high-pressure turbine, made with hollow core superalloy blades. The core weighs in at 14,000lb—two thousand pounds more than the entire XB-1 supersonic aircraft.

The goal of this “sprint core” engine is data and learning. It is, in effect, the first draft design of our production engine core. To that end, it has nearly one thousand sensors measuring temperatures, pressures, strains, timing, and vibrations throughout the engine, with some signals sampling millions of times per second. Sensors connected to support systems (such as lubrication and fuel) mean a total of about two thousand realtime sensors. This data will allow us to calibrate and train our engineering tools — enabling us to further optimize the production Superpower design.

Today, we celebrate as this first turbine leaves the R&D factory where it was born. It heads to Boom’s dedicated test cell at the Colorado Air and Space Port, where we expect it to be operational by Thanksgiving.

Superpower Gets a Superfactory

As we built Sprint Core, one thing we learned was that the traditional aerospace supply chain could not move at supersonic speed. So we started making our own turbine components from scratch, ourselves. Sprint core includes numerous Boom-made components, including compressor vanes, high-pressure turbine blades, the central drive-shaft, and turbine cases and frames.

The world needs more power urgently—ultimately hundreds of gigawatts—and to do this we need to build the world’s most vertically integrated turbine factories that bring on net new production capability for every turbine component.

The South Denver Superpower Superfactory is the first turbine factory of its kind: starting from raw materials, it will produce blisks, blades, vanes, shafts, cases, etc — adding up to 85% (by mass) of the final product.

By the numbers, this Superfactory is enormous. Nearly 200,000 sq ft. Over 75 large-format state-of-art CNC and CMM machines. A network of multi-ton overhead cranes. Employing up to 500 machinists, technicians and manufacturing engineers —working hand-in-hand with the engineers and designers under the same roof.

Today, the Superfactory is already operational and producing its first parts. In fact, the factory is running even as it’s still under construction. When fully activated, it will produce 2GW/year of the world’s most advanced modular turbine.

But this is merely a down payment. America—and the world—need one to two orders of magnitude more power production, and we expect to build many future Superfactories at locations throughout America.

One More Thing: The World’s Most Advanced Digital Foundry

Turbine components operate at extremely demanding conditions: the high pressure turbine rotor spins at 10,000RPM while operating at nearly 3,000°F—hotter than Starship’s skin on re-entry. While a subsonic jet turbine need do to this only briefly when at full power for takeoff, a supersonic turbine—and a ground power turbine—must sustain full-power high-temperature continuous operation.

To do this requires the world’s most advanced materials science, including exotic superalloy forgings for rotor disks and hollow-core monocrystalline (“single crystal”) blades, cast with extreme precision from custom superalloys, such that every atom is precisely placed into a perfect grid for absolute maximum strength.

Such a part might sound impossible—were it not for the fact that a tiny handful of companies have been doing this for decades. According to traditional mythology, single crystal requires decades of development to master — and each individual part requires years of development, including difficult-to-obtain hard tooling which leads to iteration cycles measured in years.

Today, we’re proud to share that Boom is taking on a grand challenge in manufacturing: the Superfactory will include the world’s first all-digital single crystal foundry. Our goal is to be able to manufacture ourselves the world’s most capable cast turbine blades and vanes, on an all-digital process that requires no tooling.

This all-digital capability is critical. Imagine conceiving a new turbine blade design on Monday, and having a part ready to test Tuesday. Or—imagine being able to pivot the entire factory from making civil turbines to military jet engines, in 24 hours, with a software change.

Others have considered this a nearly impossible challenge—which is why other turbine new entrants have proposed accepting compromises in efficiency in order to avoid the most daunting manufacturing challenges. But at Boom, we exist to do what others can’t or won’t do. The team is proud and energized to be taking this on—and we’ll be excited to share our progress as development unfolds.

Come build with us

Boom is now hiring the team that will build and operate the Superfactory and engineer the products we’ll make in it. These are not easy jobs and Boom is not an easy company to work at. We have a unique culture built around small cross-functional teams, where engineering and manufacturing are both first class citizens, and where we believe that working across traditional silos and disciplines is how breakthroughs happen. If you’re the kind of person who isn’t satisfied with how the traditional companies do things—and you’d like to be free to do the best and most meaningful work of your career, you might be one of us.

We’re hiring design engineers, manufacturing engineers, machinists, and technicians. Explore at boomsupersonic.com/careers.