Boom Supersonic, a US aerospace company best known for developing the Overture supersonic passenger airliner, has unveiled its first 14,000-pound turbine core, designed to support both high-speed aircraft and natural gas power generation.

The prototype, called Sprint Core, will serve as the foundation for the company’s Symphony jet engine and its Superpower 42-megawatt gas turbine.

Boom said the core has been shipped from its research and development facility to a dedicated test site at the Colorado Air and Space Port. The company expects to begin operating the prototype by Thanksgiving.

The announcement marks a step in Boom’s effort to apply technology originally developed for supersonic flight to electricity generation, where demand for additional power capacity is growing.

The prototype contains a six-stage high-pressure compressor, a combustion system with 24 fuel nozzles and a single-stage high-pressure turbine.

Its compressor uses components known as blisks, in which the blades and central disk are manufactured as a single piece. These are made from high-grade stainless steel and nickel-based alloys.

The turbine also incorporates hollow superalloy blades designed to withstand high operating temperatures.

Boom has equipped the prototype with nearly 1,000 sensors to monitor temperature, pressure, vibration, strain and other operating conditions. Including sensors on supporting systems, the total reaches approximately 2,000.

Some measurements will be collected millions of times per second, generating data that engineers can use to evaluate the design and improve future versions.

The company emphasized that Sprint Core is an experimental prototype intended to gather engineering data, rather than a production-ready engine.

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