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Tag: test flight

  • NASA’s supersonic jet completes its first flight in California

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    Nearly a decade after NASA partnered with Lockheed Martin to build the X-59, the supersonic jet has completed its first flight in California, according to a press release spotted by Gizmodo. The X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology (Quesst) aircraft is designed to reach supersonic speeds without the “sonic boom,” and now with this latest test flight complete, NASA and Lockheed plan to conduct future tests to measure the X-59’s “sound signature and conduct community acceptance testing.”

    The flight on Tuesday was between US Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California and NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. “The X-59 performed exactly as planned,” Lockheed Martin says, “verifying initial flying qualities and air data performance on the way to a safe landing at its new home.”

    The ultimate goal for the X-59 project is to open up the possibility for commercial supersonic flights in the future. Traveling at supersonic speeds, faster than Mach 1 or around 768 miles per hour, could dramatically shorten trips transporting people and cargo. And if the Quesst design NASA and Lockheed Martin have come up with works, which includes tweaks like placing the jet engine on top of the plane and using an extremely pointy nose, it should also be much quieter. “People below would hear sonic ‘thumps’ rather than booms, if they hear anything at all,” NASA explained in a 2023 blog post.

    A ban on supersonic flights over the United States went into effect on April 27, 1973, in response to concerns of property damage and noise pollution. The ban stayed in place for decades until President Donald Trump ordered the Federal Aviation Administration to remove the ban in June 2025 as part of an executive order. Now there’s a new urgency to NASA and Lockheed Martin’s work with the X-59, and an opportunity to apply what they learn to “inform the establishment of new data-driven acceptable noise thresholds related to supersonic commercial flight over land.”

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  • SpaceX’s Starship deploys its payload for the first time

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    SpaceX has successfully launched the Starship for its 10th test flight after it was delayed a couple of times due to weather conditions and other issues. This time, the company was able to achieve its objectives without the vehicle and its booster exploding mid-test. One of those objectives was deploying Starship’s payload for the first time ever. If you’ll recall, Starship exploded during its ascent stage in the company’s seventh and eighth test flights. The vehicle made it to space for its ninth test, but it failed to deploy its fake satellite payload. In June, a Starship vehicle exploded on the ground while the company was preparing it for its 10th flight test.

    The company had to use another upper stage, called Ship, for the 10th flight after that explosion. It also incorporated changes into the Ship and its Super Heavy booster, based on what it learned from those previous attempts. For this test, SpaceX intended to conduct several experiments with the booster, such as flipping it and playing with engine configurations as it made its way back down. Due to the experimental nature of this test, SpaceX didn’t try to catch it with the launch tower’s chopstick arms. Instead, it made a controlled descent into the Indian Ocean, where it exploded upon making contact with the water.

    Meanwhile, Ship continued flying into space. Around 20 minutes after launch, the upper stage started ejecting eight dummy Starlink satellites into space, before re-lighting one of its engines in flight as part of another test. After that, Ship started making its way back to Earth, where it also splashed down into the Indian Ocean a bit over an hour after launch. “Congratulations to all of our teammates here at SpaceX — it’s been a year,” SpaceX’s Dan Huot said during the livestream, likely pointing out that it’s been a while since the company has had a good test flight. Of course, SpaceX still has a long way to go, including having to figure out how to retrieve the vehicle’s upper stage after a flight in order for the Starship to be fully reusable.

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    Mariella Moon

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