By Steve Gorman
PALMDALE, California (Reuters) – NASA’s supersonic but quiet X-59 jet soared over the Southern California desert on Tuesday in the first test flight of an experimental plane designed to break the sound barrier without all the noise.
The sleek plane, which measured just under 100 feet (30 meters) from nose to tail, took off about an hour after dawn from a runway at Plant 42 of the Lockheed Martin Skunk Works facility in Palmdale, about 60 miles (100 kilometers) north of Los Angeles.
After a steep climb over grass fields just east of the runway, the plane was seen banking north on a trajectory toward Edwards Air Force Base, about twelve miles away, where it was expected to land. He was accompanied by a NASA chase plane.
The single-engine X-59 appeared to fly at subsonic speeds, as expected on its initial test flight.
A crowd of about 200 aerospace workers and their families watched the takeoff from a safe distance parked along a nearby highway.
A Lockheed Martin spokesperson, Candis Roussel, told Reuters in a brief email statement that the “X-59 successfully completed its first flight this morning” and hailed it as a “major aviation milestone.” He said the company would provide details later.
A one-of-a-kind experimental aircraft, the
The aircraft’s unique shape is designed to greatly reduce the explosive-like sonic boom that normally occurs when an aircraft breaks the sound barrier, lowering the volume to a muffled “sonic boom” no louder than closing a car door.
The perfection of this low-decibel flight technology could make supersonic aircraft more conducive to commercial aviation service, especially in populated areas.
The Concorde supersonic airliner began scheduled transatlantic flights with British Airways and Air France in 1976. But the plane was retired in 2003 due to high operating costs, limited seating and slow passenger numbers following a fatal crash in July 2000 and the September 11, 2001, attacks.
In press materials posted online last month, NASA said the first flight of the
During subsequent test flights, the X-59 will travel higher and faster, eventually exceeding the speed of sound: approximately 761 mph (1,225 kph) at sea level.
The California Technology and Manufacturers Association earlier this month named the X-59 the “coolest thing made in California” of 2025 in its annual statewide technology contest.
(Reporting by David Swanson in Palmdale, California; writing and additional reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; editing by Howard Goller)