NASA’s Really Fast Plane

Have you seen a proper plane that can reach approximately 925 mph? Probably not because it is faster than the speed of light. If you have not heard, NASA is developing the quickest plane in history. This plane makes a sonic boom when it blasts. This plane is called the X-59. The X-59 will be primarily used for the U.S. space agency’s mission to develop a way for ordinary jet travel around Earth to become much, much faster.

A sonic boom is a loud sound that gives a plane a boost. It is described as a jolt and sounds like a thunderbolt. Sound waves travel at about 750mph, but once the plane exceeds the speed of the waves, the waves bunch up and combine to form a shock wave, also known as a sonic boom.

Lockheed Martin, the plane’s creator, published it in California in January 2024. The X-59 is part of NASA’s Quest mission, which aims to demonstrate that technology can become supersonic, or faster than the speed of sound, without generating loud sonic booms. That sound barrier speed, known as Mach 1, is approximately 767 miles an hour, or 343 meters per second.

The primary focus of X-59 is to make quiet booms so that it can be taken over land. This has not been resolved, although NASA is working on it. The Space Agency says it will survey how people respond when the X-59 flies overhead. Sharing these reactions and data on the quieter sonic “thumps” with national and international officials to see what the acceptable noise levels are relating to supersonic commercial flight over land.

The X-59 has a large, sharp metal nose that occupies nearly a third of its length. The X-59 is 30 meters long. To make it fly even faster, designers have put the cockpit almost halfway down the plane and removed the forward-facing windows you usually see in airplanes and cars.