NASA's Quesst Mission: A Future with Quiet Supersonic Flight

NASA's Quesst Mission: A Future with Quiet Supersonic Flight

NASA’s Quesst mission seeks to collect data that could make commercial supersonic flight over land possible, dramatically reducing travel time in the United States or anywhere in the world. The centerpiece of the Quesst mission is NASA’s X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft, designed to fly supersonic, or faster than the speed of sound, while reducing typical loud sonic booms to quieter sonic “thumps”. 

Through the Quesst mission, NASA will fly the X-59 over several U.S. communities to gather data on human responses to the sound generated during supersonic flight and will deliver that data set to U.S. and international regulators. This will inform the establishment of new, data-driven noise thresholds, opening the door to a future with commercial supersonic flight over land.

The X-59 aircraft builds on decades of supersonic flight research and is the centerpiece of NASA’s Quesst mission. The vast amount of data collected over the years has given designers the tools they needed to craft the shape of the X-59. The goal is to enable the aircraft to fly at supersonic speeds and reduce a loud sonic boom to a quieter “sonic thump.”

The X-59’s engine, a modified F414-GE-100, packs 22,000 pounds of thrust. This will enable the X-59 to achieve the desired cruising speed of Mach 1.4 (925 miles per hour) at an altitude of approximately 55,000 feet. It sits in a nontraditional spot–atop the aircraft—to aid in making the X-59 quieter.

The X-59's goal is to help change existing national and international aviation rules that ban commercial supersonic flight over land.

For more information about the X-59 and NASA's Quesst mission, visit www.nasa.gov/quesst

Video Credit: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Duration: 2 minutes
Release Date: March 19, 2026

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