NASA's supersonic X-59 jet hits Mach 1.1 in key supersonic trial

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) aircraft X-59 has achieved its first supersonic flight, marking a breakthrough moment in the agency’s objective to achieve a quiet supersonic flight over land.

NASA test pilot Jim “Clue” Less took off on the X-59 “Son of Concorde” at 11:08 a.m. local time on Friday and flew the plane for 81 minutes reaching a top speed of Mach 1.1 (1,147km/h) at an altitude of 3,228 meters.

The successful test flight marks an important milestone in its experimental flight program.

The breakthrough moment comes after an intensive testing phase since the plane’s launch in October last year. X-59 has completed 16 test flights in the last three months.

The Agency described the ultimate goal behind X-59 supersonic jet on its website: “The ultimate goal of the NASA X-59 Quesst is to make commercial supersonic air travel over land possible by reducing deafening sonic booms to a quiet, barely audible thump."

Celebrating the achievement the NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said, “I’m grateful to the NASA team and Lockheed Martin Skunk Works for their help getting us to this point, and I hope this is the first of many collaborations as we rebuild NASA’s X-plane portfolio.”

In the final phase of testing the space exploration agency aims to test the Lockheed Martin developed to its absolute limits, aiming to hit the top speed of 1.6 Mach while flying at 60,000 feet above ground.