Page 4 - Aerotech News and Review – December 5, 2025

4 December 5, 2025 www.aerotechnews.com
X-59, from Page 1
“The X-59 is the first major, piloted X-plane NASA has built and flown in over 20 years — a unique, purpose- built aircraft,” said Bob Pearce, NASA associate administrator for the Aero- nautics Research Mission Directorate. “This aircraft represents a validation of what NASA Aeronautics exists to do, which is to envision the future of flight and deliver it in ways that serve U.S. aviation and the public.”
NASA Armstrong has a long his- tory of flying X-planes that pushed the edges of flight. In 1947, the X-1 broke the sound barrier. More than a decade later, the X-15 pushed speed and altitude to new extremes. Starting in the 1960s, the X-24 shaped how we understand re-entry from space, and in the 1980s the X-29 tested forward- swept wings that challenged aerody- namic limits.
Each of those aircraft helped answer a question about aeronautics. The X-59 continues that tradition with a mission focused on sound — reducing loud sonic booms to sonic thumps barely audible on the ground. The X-59 was built for one purpose: to prove that supersonic flight over land can be quiet enough for public acceptance.
NASA photograph by Jim Ross
NASA’s X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft flies above Palmdale and Edwards, California, on its first flight Oct. 28, 2025. The aircraft traveled to NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, Calif., where it will begin flight testing for NASA’s Quesst mission, which aims to demonstrate quiet supersonic flight over land.
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air flow upward and away from the ground.
The cockpit sits mid-fuselage, with no forward-facing window. Instead, NASA developed an eXternal Vision System — cameras and advanced high-definition displays that allow the pilot to see ahead and below the aircraft, which is particu- larly critical during landing.
These design choices reflect years of research and modeling — all focused on changing how the quieter sonic thump from a supersonic aircraft will be per- ceived by people on the ground.
NASA’s goal is to gather community response data to support the develop- ment of new standards for acceptable lev- els of sound from commercial supersonic flight over land. To do this, NASA will fly the X-59 over different U.S. commu- nities, collecting ground measurement data and survey input from residents to better understand people’s perception of the X-59’s sonic thump.
“Most X-planes only live in the re- stricted airspace here on center,” Flick said. “This one is going to go out and fly around the country.”
When the X-59 lifted off the ground for the first time, it carried a piece of NA- SA’s history back into the air. And with it, a reminder that advancing aeronautics remains central to NASA’s mission.
Next steps
Getting off the ground was only the beginning for the X-59. The team is now preparing the aircraft for full flight test- ing, evaluating how it will handle and, eventually, how its design will shape shock waves, which typically result in a sonic boom, in supersonic flight. The
X-59 will eventually reach its target cruising speed of about 925 mph (Mach 1.4) at 55,000 feet.
The aircraft’s design sits at the center of that testing, shaping and distribut- ing shock-wave formation. Its engine is mounted on top of the fuselage – the main body of the aircraft — to redirect
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