NASA’s X-59 Quiet Supersonic Aircraft Completes Inaugural Test Flight
(MENAFN) NASA’s X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft, built by aerospace contractor Lockheed Martin, successfully completed its inaugural flight on Tuesday, marking a milestone in efforts to make supersonic travel over land feasible.
The X-59 is at the heart of NASA’s Quesst mission, which seeks to overcome a key obstacle to supersonic flight over populated areas: the loud sonic boom. The mission’s goal is to reduce the signature boom to a nearly imperceptible “thump.”
Lockheed Martin reported that the X-59 took off from U.S. Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, and landed near NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. “The aircraft performed as planned, verifying its initial flying qualities and air data performance during the test flight,” the company said.
Data gathered from the X-59’s development and flight tests will help establish “new data-driven acceptable noise thresholds related to supersonic commercial flight over land,” Lockheed Martin said. These benchmarks aim to enable a new generation of supersonic aircraft capable of transporting passengers and cargo at twice the speed of conventional jets while remaining efficient and environmentally conscious.
The aircraft measures approximately 30 meters in length and 9 meters in width and is powered by a single jet engine. NASA notes it is designed to cruise at roughly 1,400 kilometers per hour.
NASA emphasized that the X-59 will collect crucial data to show that sonic booms can be reduced to barely audible “thumps” on the ground. “The results will be shared with regulators to help develop acceptable noise thresholds for future supersonic flight over land.”
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