Commercial supersonic travel just got one step closer to reality, as Lockheed Martin has just made its first successful flight with the X-59 prototype for NASA’s Quiet Supersonic Technology (QueSST) mission. The goal here is to reduce the disruptive and destructive sonic boom down to a much softer thump. This maiden flight hasn’t tested that capability just yet; this was a simple, low-altitude flight at a gentle (and subsonic) 240 mph, per The War Zone. Everything went great, clearing this baseline of airworthiness and setting the X-59 up for high-speed tests to come.
Even in the heyday of the Concorde, supersonic travel was never allowed overland because sonic booms were not considered acceptable over populated areas. NASA (which, lest you forget, is an aeronautics as well as a space administration) is trying to solve that problem with a more advanced plane design, as opposed to any brand-new technology. The X-59 is extremely long and thin: at 100 ft long in total, the nose alone is 38 ft, and the wingspan is only 30 ft. This dart-like shape helps spread out the sonic boom, dampening its impact. On top of that (literally), the single engine, similar to what’s on an F/A-18, is mounted above the fuselage so that its own shockwaves aren’t pointed at the ground.
Put all that together, and the hope is that the X-59 will be able to cruise at 55,000 ft at Mach 1.4, yet only create 75 PLdB of noise. That’s the equivalent of a car door closing. There’s a lot more testing to go, but if the X-59 can actually demonstrate all that, then suddenly commercial supersonic becomes a feasible business model with overland routes.
R&D, open to everyone
What exactly is NASA hoping to actually do with its QueSST mission? The agency just wants to prove that it can be done. Think of it as a tech demo in the public domain that any company can copy or modify as it wants. That does mean that the X-59 is single-purpose; it can’t hold any passengers, and the pilot doesn’t even have a front-facing window (there’s only a screen with a camera feed). The whole plane is a bit of a Frankenstein creation, with the engine of an F/A-18, the pilot’s seat of a T-38, the landing gear of an F-16, and the life support system of an F-15. It’s alive!
If the X-59 is successful, this capability is arriving at a great time. Multiple startups are already trying to get supersonic planes back into airlines, and President Donald Trump is trying to lower the regulatory barriers to the business (though nothing has come of this just yet). A future of much faster air travel is tantalizingly close, which is great for passengers and the wider economy — think what shorter shipping times will do. Of course, to complete its QueSST, NASA will need funding. You know, from the federal government. How much it’s going to get in the future, whenever the current shutdown ends, is a very open question.
