NASA's X-59 Plane Is Almost Ready for Test Drive

NASA’s supersonic X-59 plane is almost ready for a test drive. The jet is going to be part of NASA’s mission called Quesst.

The jet is supposed to fly about 925 miles per hour. That’s faster than the speed of sound, so it would cause a sonic boom. Sonic booms happen when objects break the sound barrier.

Lockheed Martin, an aircraft maker, and NASA have already shown the X-59 in a ceremony in California.

The jet is part of Quesst, NASA’s mission to fly faster than the speed of sound without making loud sonic booms. Supersonic flights are not allowed over land except for the military. NASA hopes to make the sonic booms quieter and convince the authorities to let supersonic flights over land.

The X-59 is about 30 meters long, and it has a long nose that is one-third its size (10 meters) to increase the jet’s speed. Designers have put the cockpit about halfway down the plane and have gotten rid of the side windows. Instead of seeing out of the side windows, the pilots will see through a screen in the cockpit.

There has been a faster jet before the X-59 called Concorde. Instead of 925 miles per hour, it could fly 1354 miles per hour, 429 miles faster than the X-59. Concorde’s first flight was on March 2nd, 1969, and its last flight was on October 24th, 2003. Aircraft makers tried to find a better, quieter way to build the X-59.