A new era of air travel could be on the horizon as NASA and Lockheed Martin successfully completed the first test flight of X-59, a supersonic jet designed to fly faster than sound with minimal noise.
The sleek, 100-foot aircraft took off early Tuesday from Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works facility in Palmdale, California, gliding over the desert before landing safely near NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center.
The test flight, conducted at subsonic speed, focused on verifying the jet’s structure and systems; a crucial first step toward achieving quiet supersonic travel.
Unlike earlier supersonic aircraft that created deafening “sonic booms,” the X-59 is engineered to produce only a soft “thump” when breaking the sound barrier.
NASA hopes this innovation will eventually persuade regulators to lift the ban on commercial supersonic flights over land, which has been in place in the US since the 1970s due to public noise complaints.
The last major supersonic passenger jet, the Concorde, operated by British Airways and Air France, offered transatlantic flights from the 1970s until 2003.
The service ended after a fatal crash in 2000 and declining passenger demand made the costly operation unsustainable.
If the X-59 meets its goals, it could cut travel times between cities like New York and Los Angeles by about half, potentially transforming commercial aviation.
NASA and Lockheed Martin have spent years developing the aircraft under the Quesst (Quiet SuperSonic Technology) program, aiming to demonstrate that supersonic travel can be both fast and quiet.
Tuesday’s successful test marks a milestone in that mission and a possible step toward a new generation of high-speed passenger jets.
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