NASA and Lockheed Martin’s experimental X‑59 jet completed its first test flight Tuesday, Oct. 28, a milestone in the agency’s effort to prove that passenger aircraft can fly faster than sound without the window‑rattling sonic booms that have long kept supersonic travel off U.S. routes over land.
Piloted by NASA’s Nils Larson, the sleek, single‑seat X‑plane departed Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works facility in Palmdale and landed at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base after a low‑altitude shakedown flight focused on basic systems and safety.
Initial testing was conducted at roughly 230 mph and around 12,000 feet, part of a deliberately conservative envelope‑expansion plan before the aircraft goes higher and faster in subsequent sorties.
“There’s a lot of trust that goes into flying something new,” Larson said before the flight. “You’re trusting the engineers, the maintainers, the designers, everyone who has touched the aircraft. And if I’m not comfortable, I’m not getting in. But if they trust the aircraft, and they trust me in it, then I’m all in.”
The X‑59 is the centerpiece of NASA’s Quesst mission, which aims to transform the traditional “boom” from supersonic flight into a softer “sonic thump.”
The jet’s elongated nose, top‑mounted engine and carefully tailored aerodynamics are designed to spread and shape shock waves so that communities underneath experience far less intrusive sound.
The cockpit uses an eXternal Visibility System rather than a forward windshield, piping in real‑time camera views to a large display for the pilot.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who is also serving as acting NASA administrator, called the aircraft “a symbol of American ingenuity,” saying the program “has the potential to change the way the public flies.”
NASA has paid Lockheed more than $518 million since 2018 to develop and demonstrate the aircraft. After airworthiness and acoustic‑validation phases, NASA plans community overflights in multiple U.S. regions to measure what people hear and how they respond.
The data will be delivered to U.S. and international regulators as they consider whether to replace the long‑standing overland supersonic speed prohibition with a noise‑based standard.
For now, federal rules still generally bar civil aircraft from exceeding Mach 1 over land except under special authorizations. The X‑59 is expected to eventually cruise near Mach 1.4 at about 55,000 feet during the research campaign as engineers gather the acoustic and community‑response evidence regulators have asked to see.
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