Transport & space · October 2025

X-59 quiet supersonic jet

NASA's X-59 flies, aiming to turn the sonic boom into a thump.

The Lockheed Martin X-59 made its first flight from Palmdale on October 28, 2025, and first went supersonic at Mach 1.1 on June 5, 2026. Its community tests could lift the ban on supersonic flight over land.

See it in the living tree Wikipedia Source

Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 1

Concorde 1969

Watch

NASA’s X-59 Completes Historic First FlightNASA Armstrong Flight Research Center · YouTube

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

Transatlantic crossing time Latest: 3.5 hours (1976) Source: Wikipedia: Transatlantic crossing, duration list; Geography of Transport Systems: liner transatlantic crossing times

Selected milestones in human travel speed Latest: 39.9k km/h (1969) Source: Wikipedia: Horse gait (gallop 40-48 km/h); Wikipedia: List of speed records in rail transport