They\u2019ve been making up for lost time ever since. The X-59 has flown<\/a> on nine more occasions, most recently on April 14<\/a> when it accomplished some of its biggest feats to date while cruising over the Mojave Desert in California. This time around, however, Lockheed was ready to show off the aircraft in action. From the opening maneuvers, it\u2019s clear that a ride in the plane isn\u2019t for the faint of heart<\/a>.<\/p>\n The dizzying ascensions and precise axial turns look uncomfortable even from the distance of a computer screen, but there\u2019s no denying that the X-59 is making major progress. It didn\u2019t quite achieve supersonic speed since it only reached around 0.95 Mach speed (about 730 miles per hour), but the major milestone likely isn\u2019t too far away at this point.<\/p>\n \u201cMoving forward, the X-59 will continue to test its performance at high and fast test points as well as low and slow test points,\u201d Lockheed said in its recent update<\/a>. \u201cFrom there, the joint Lockheed Martin and NASA team will move quickly into supersonic speeds and eventually the aircraft\u2019s design points of roughly 55,000 feet and Mach 1.4, where it will create the first ever quiet supersonic thump.\u201d<\/p>\n If all goes as planned, the X-59 will eventually top out at around Mach 1.5 (about 990 mph) and maintain a cruising speed of Mach 1.42 (940 mph) at an altitude of 55,000 feet. The resultant supersonic \u201cthump\u201d is currently projected to have a perceived loudness (PLdB) equivalent to a car door slamming\u2014about 16 times quieter than the notorious sonic booms generated by the Concorde aircraft<\/a>. While Lockheed and NASA have spent years hyping X-59 as the way to reintroduce supersonic commercial air travel, there is no denying that the military certainly has other plans for the next-generation plane. Don\u2019t just expect those ideas to be revealed anytime soon.<\/p>\n \t\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t 2025 PopSci Best of What\u2019s New<\/p>\n The 50 most important innovations of the year<\/p>\n \t\u00a0<\/p>\n Andrew Paul is a staff writer for Popular Science.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Get the Popular Science daily newsletter\ud83d\udca1 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. It\u2019s been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":470958,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[270],"tags":[66546,18,19,17,5,89860,133,451],"class_list":["post-470957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-air-travel","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-planes","tag-science","tag-space"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116526743845137140","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Pilot](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/X-59-Cockpit.png\")
A pilot\u2019s virtual view from inside the X-59. Credit: YouTube \/ NASA<\/a> <\/p>\n![\"products](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/best-of-whats-new-2025-HERO.png\")
\t\t\t<\/p>\n