Overview
- The single-seat X-59 flew its inaugural, subsonic test this week over Southern California, departing Lockheed Martin’s Palmdale Skunk Works and landing near NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center.
- The roughly hourlong checkout flight focused on structural and systems verification, with engineers capturing 60 data streams covering more than 20,000 parameters.
- Built by Lockheed Martin for NASA as a technology demonstrator, the aircraft is designed to turn a traditional sonic boom into a softer “thump” and is expected to reach up to about Mach 1.5 in later tests.
- NASA says upcoming phases include higher-speed envelope expansion and community overflights to collect human response data, which will be shared with the FAA and international regulators.
- Commercial supersonic travel over U.S. land has been banned since 1973 due to noise, and supporters say successful noise reduction could eventually cut trips such as New York–Los Angeles to under three hours.