NASA test flight seeks to help bring commercial supersonic travel back

The X-59 has successfully completed its inaugural flight.

About an hour after sunrise over the Mojave Desert of Southern California, NASA’s newest experimental supersonic jet took to the skies for the first time on Tuesday. The X-59 Quesst (Quiet SuperSonic Technology) is designed to decrease the noise of a sonic boom when an aircraft breaks the sound barrier, paving the way for future commercial jets to fly at supersonic speeds over land.

The jet, built by Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works, took off from US Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California. Flown by Nils Larson, NASA’s lead test pilot for the X-59, the inaugural flight validated the jet’s airworthiness and safety before landing about an hour after takeoff near NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California.

“X-59 is a symbol of American ingenuity,” acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy said in a statement. “It’s part of our DNA—the desire to go farther, faster, and even quieter than anyone has ever gone before.”

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SpaceX teases simplified Starship as alarms sound over Moon landing delays

“SpaceX shares the goal of returning to the Moon as expeditiously as possible.”

SpaceX on Thursday released the most detailed public update in nearly two years on its multibillion-dollar contract to land astronauts on the Moon for NASA, amid growing sentiment that China is likely to beat the United States back to the lunar surface with humans.

In a lengthy statement published on SpaceX’s website Thursday, the company said it “will be a central enabler that will fulfill the vision of NASA’s Artemis program, which seeks to establish a lasting presence on the lunar surface… and ultimately forge the path to land the first humans on Mars.”

Getting to Mars is SpaceX’s overarching objective, a concise but lofty mission statement introduced by Elon Musk at the company’s founding nearly a quarter-century ago. Musk has criticized NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to return US astronauts to the Moon for the first time since the last Apollo lunar mission in 1972, as unambitious and too reliant on traditional aerospace contractors.

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(g+) Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy: Wie wir uns die Realität zurechtbiegen

Wir täuschen uns oft selbst über Ursachen, selbst wenn wir glauben, dass wir Zufall berücksichtigen – ein häufiges Phänomen in der IT. Von Tim Reinboth (Denkpause, Wirtschaft)

Wir täuschen uns oft selbst über Ursachen, selbst wenn wir glauben, dass wir Zufall berücksichtigen - ein häufiges Phänomen in der IT. Von Tim Reinboth (Denkpause, Wirtschaft)