BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — A one-of-a-kind NASA research jet built to break the sound barrier without rattling windows touched down in Birmingham on Thursday, using Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport as a refueling stop on its trip across the country.
The X-59, built by Lockheed Martin for the space agency’s Quesst program, took off from the Navy’s joint reserve base in Fort Worth at 9:48 a.m. Central time and reached Birmingham at 11:03 a.m., a hop of 539 nautical miles. It set out Wednesday from Edwards Air Force Base in California and had already stopped in El Paso and Fort Worth.
The jet is bound for Kennedy Space Center, where NASA holds its MAX POWER aerospace expo and air show on Nov. 7 and 8. The trip lands almost exactly a year after the X-59 first flew on Oct. 28, 2025.
The idea behind the aircraft is to swap the sharp boom of supersonic flight for a soft thump. Its long, narrow nose and other shaping keep shock waves from merging into one loud blast. Commercial supersonic flights over land have been off limits in the United States for more than 50 years because of the noise.
Breaking the sound barrier, somewhere around 750 miles per hour, is routine for military jets. The Quesst research effort started about a decade ago to find a way around the noise problem, and since its first flight the X-59 has spent a year being tested at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in California. Its Birmingham visit was a quick one, with the final leg to Florida planned for Friday.
NASA said the plane has logged 40 more flights since its debut, topping out at Mach 1.53 and above 56,000 feet. Next comes acoustic testing, followed by flights over selected communities to gauge how people react, with the results going to regulators weighing whether to ease the ban.