Overview
- The X-59 reached Mach 1.4 at about 55,000 feet on June 12, a flight condition NASA says it will use for future community overflights.
- The aircraft first went supersonic on June 5 when it hit roughly Mach 1.1 at about 43,400 feet during an 81-minute test flight.
- Early supersonic acoustic data were contaminated because a NASA F-15 chase plane produced its own sonic booms and masked the X-59’s signal.
- NASA plans to outfit the F-15 with a shock-sensing probe and use ground microphone arrays as the X-59 enters a formal acoustic validation phase before public overflights.
- Built by Lockheed Martin under a roughly $247.5 million NASA contract, the single-pilot X-59 uses a long, needle-like nose and an external-vision camera system and is designed to replace a loud sonic boom with a quieter “thump,” which has not yet been validated in community settings.