📅 Target Flight: Early to Mid 2025
📍 Edwards AFB / Armstrong Flight Research Center (AFRC), California, USA
Category: Aviation
Tag: #QuietSupersonic #LowBoom #CuttingEdgeAvionics
🧭 Aircraft Profile & Mission Context
The X‑59 QueSST (Quiet SuperSonic Technology) is NASA and Lockheed Martin’s experimental low-boom flight demonstrator—built to fly supersonic without creating disruptive sonic booms. At 99.7 ft long with a 38-ft nose, it’s designed to cruise around Mach 1.4 (≈925 mph) at 55,000 ft altitude, replacing the loud booms of Concorde with a faint “thump” (~75 PLdB, similar to a car door closing).
Its mission: test the aircraft’s noise reduction capabilities and engage U.S. communities to gauge perception, generating data to enable regulators (FAA/ICAO) to redefine supersonic flight rules over land by as early as 2028.
🚀 Technology Highlights
1. Aerodynamic Design for Low Boom
Ultra-long nose (~1/3 aircraft length) and delta wing with canards disperse shock waves, preventing classic N-wave sonic booms.
The fuselage and tail surfaces are meticulously shaped through computational modeling and wind tunnel testing (Mach 0.3–1.6) to refine low-boom characteristics.
2. Propulsion System
A single GE F414‑GE‑100 turbofan (~22,000 lbf thrust) powers the aircraft—delivered to NASA in 2022 and first started in late 2024.
Mounted atop the fuselage, the engine’s placement helps shield noise from reaching the ground, supporting the low-boom design.
3. External Vision System (XVS)
Since the stretched nose prevents direct forward visibility, an XVS camera system provides a high-res view on an in-cockpit display—essential for safe flight operations.
4. Acoustic Measurement Tooling
Sensor-equipped chase aircraft (e.g., modified F‑15s) will record shockwave signatures using multi-microphone probe arrays, capturing atmospheric and ground-level noise for analysis.
🔧 Test Readiness & Timeline
Late 2024: Engine ground tests successfully completed, validating thrust, airflow, cooling, and structural behavior.
Early to Mid 2025: Flight envelope expansion begins with low-speed taxi, runway takeoffs, first flight, followed by low-boom supersonic runs.
2026–2027: Community flight surveys conducted across U.S. cities, gathering perceptual data to inform regulatory integration.
2028+: Data submission to FAA/ICAO for policy decisions; potential rule updates enabling commercial overland supersonic travel.