The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) X-59 aircraft has made its first supersonic flight, marking a breakthrough in the agency’s goal of achieving quiet supersonic flight over land.
NASA test pilot Jim “Clue” Less took off at 11:08 a.m. local time on Friday aboard the X-59 “Son of Concorde” and flew the aircraft for 81 minutes, reaching a top speed of Mach 1.1 (1,147 km/h) at an altitude of 3,228 meters.
The successful test flight marks an important milestone in its experimental flight program.
The watershed moment comes after an intensive testing phase since the aircraft was launched in October last year. The X-59 has completed 16 test flights over the past three months.
The Agency described the ultimate goal of the X-59 supersonic jet on its website: “The ultimate goal of the NASA »
Celebrating the achievement, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said, “I am grateful to the NASA team and Lockheed Martin Skunk Works for their help in getting us to this point, and I hope this is the first of many collaborations as we rebuild NASA’s X-plane portfolio.” »
In the final phase of testing, the space exploration agency aims to test the developed Lockheed Martin to its absolute limits, aiming to reach the maximum speed of 1.6 Mach while flying 60,000 feet above the ground.
