NASA and Lockheed Martin’s coveted Skunk Works division have teamed up to develop the X-59 QueSST – an X-plane that will employ low-boom technology, designed to replace the famous sonic boom with a quiet thump.
The X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology (QueSST) – NASA’s first manned supersonic X-plane in decades – is a one-off single-seat demonstrator that has been specifically-designed to undertake the administration’s Low-Boom Flight Demonstration (LBFD) mission. The LBFD has some unique and exciting goals: to prove that sounds generated from supersonic flight can be made quiet enough to allow regulators to change the rules surrounding overland supersonic flight.
NASA will use the X-59 to prove its low-boom theory, which, if successful, could open the door to a new generation of supersonic-capable commercial aircraft that are able to fly faster than sound overland – some that the famed Concorde could never do.
From late 2023, the administration will fly the QueSST over several US cities in a series of community overflight tests. Each test will last for approximately a month, with the X-59 being flown over people, generating different levels of sound and NASA recording the response through surveys and a number of sophisticated aco…
