Washington, October 17
NASA aeronautical innovators are poised to break the sound barrier again, this time in a very different way that could make it possible for all of us to one day travel by air just as fast as any of the X-1 pilots who flew supersonic.
NASA’s X-59, the centerpiece of the agency’s Quesst mission, will enable commercial supersonic travel over land.
Lockheed Martin has designed, built and conducted initial flight tests with the aircraft and the first flight is targeted for 2023.
“That first supersonic flight was such a tremendous achievement, and now you look at how far we’ve come since then. What we’re doing now is the culmination of so much of their work,” said Catherine Bahm, an aeronautical engineer at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in California.
