NASA's 'Son of Concorde' X-59 jet is preparing for its first ever supersonic flight

NASA’s ‘Son of Concorde’ X-59 jet is gearing up for a huge milestone – its first ever supersonic flight.

After months of flights, the team at NASA have upped the ante and are getting ready for the next step.

This is going to be the first time the X-59 will fly faster than the speed of sound – over 630mph.

This will mark a major turning point in the project.

NASA is pushing the ‘Son of Concorde’ project further – it’ll undertake its first supersonic flight

The team is expected to fly the X-59 at supersonic speeds at heights of roughly 43,000 feet.

These tests will take place in early June and will lead onto further trials where the plane will be flown at ‘mission conditions’.

What does that entail? Hitting Mach 1.4 (925mph) at roughly 55,000 feet.

This is what NASA wants the X-59 to be working at when it flies over the US to demonstrate the wonders of supersonic flight without the noise.

“What comes next is the first time this one-of-a-kind aircraft will fly supersonic,” Cathy Bahm, project manager for NASA’s Low Boom Flight Demonstrator, said.

“We are starting toward the mission conditions test point that X-59 was designed for.”

Accompanying the X-59 will be a traditional supersonic chase plane, which will make its fair share of noise.

This second plane will be kitted out with a probe that can measure the X-59’s shock waves.

A lot of progress has been made on this project so far

NASA has been working on the X-59 aircraft for a while now, and even though we’re still a way off from supersonic travel as Concorde flyers knew it, this is the first real attempt at conquering those speeds again in two decades.

In recent years, the project has come leaps and bounds.

Earlier in May, it completed two test flights in a single day.

Think back to the summer of 2025, and this plane was still undergoing testing in a wind tunnel.

It’s come a long way.

The sky really is the limit.