NASA’s X-59 Completes Block 1 Flight Test Milestones

NASA’s X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft completed its first block of envelope expansion flight tests in May 2026, achieving several major milestones. Accomplishments included the aircraft’s first landing gear retraction flight, reaching altitudes up to 43,000 feet and speeds up to Mach 0.95, approximately 627 miles per hour, and completing its first dual-flight day. The video highlights key moments from Block 1 testing as NASA continues preparing the aircraft for future supersonic flights in support of the Quesst mission.

What is said in the film

Brake release. Air speed is alive. Male. Nose wheel steering is off. Looking good.

Pulling right. And 143 airborne. Leaving the gear down. Three down and locked. Clean.

Cleared Chase. SPORT, NASA 859 passing 5700 NASA 859 SPORT, radar contact. And Control is ready for takeoff. Six. Seven.

Eight. 30. 41, 150, 160. Leaps right off the ground. Nose up to keep the air speed under control.

Some amount of obstruction. 10,000. Control, rolling out here to the east. There’s full right pedal. In the room.

Thumbs if You're good for the gear retraction, Chase, call ready. We’re ready. Gear in three, two, one. Now. Okay, it does pitch up a little bit.

Holds speed just fine. Clean and dry. Settings are verified. You are cleared. to arm and run.

He’ll turn into us and bank away. Run, run! One potato Two potato. Okay. Point complete.

Stand by. Reviewing. Cleared to arm and run. One potato. Two potato Point complete.

Standby. Reviewing. You’re cleared Left side flip, slow release . Copy. Left, slow.

Three quarters. Full. Slowly backing out. half. Point complete.

Test. Control. Good maneuver. Card complete. Moving to car five.

Set up for climb up to 32K, . 7 Target 241 KEAS. Copy. Control’s ready for the climb at 250 to 260. Capturing point eight.

Okay, Test copy. Starting up. 250 to 260 And test. Expect potential wind shear in the 12 to 14 K region. Copy.

Chase is showing 291, 32060, . 80MACH Copy. Ready to go to 43K. Okay. Coming up to 43K.

There's 43K Clear to accel. Chase mumbling . 94. 95. Test.

You are cleared roller coaster Point complete. Point complete. Okay. Let me go and reset. Bingo to 2.

7 copy. Resetting. Bingo. We’ll call that Joker. K, red light in the handle.

Brake degrade. Three green. FVS coming out. Control shows program five in progress Test. Control, when able.

Fuels requests. Cross feed. Valve closed. NASA 859 contact Tower. NASA 859 Flight, Runway 23Left.

Wind calm. Cleared for the option. Traffic is on final. Full stop. In sight.

NASA 859 copies. Traffic iin sight. NASA 859 Flight, Runway 23L. Wind 110 at 3. Cleared for the option.

be a little crosswind. Maybe? Good transition. Good transition. Thank you.

The big successes from block one, we're getting the airplane airborne again, retracting the gear, showing that it flies well with both the gear up and the gear down so we started off block one with just one flight in the first week, and then we worked up to two flights in the same week. We've now worked up to doing two flights in one day and up to four flights in a week. flight test is all about a build up approach. We don't want to just go out as fast as we can on the first try. So we step carefully.

We go a little bit higher. We go a little bit faster. Each one of those test points expands the envelope. We also go slower and lower, because sometimes that's a little more hazardous. So we get the airplane to its minimum speed and we've achieved that as well on block one.

For higher and faster in block one, we got again got up to 43,000ft and about 2. 96 mark. The next step in the next phase, of course, will be taking in supersonic. So the flight test maneuvers we do, such as bank to bank rolls or side slips, are all designed to prove that the airplane is safe to fly in a normal envelope down the road, when we're flying it around the country, we don't have to worry about whether I can roll to the left and pull hard on the stick. All these things have been proven in flight test with the control room backing us up the whole way.

So we've spent years flying our simulator. So we have an idea how we think the airplane is going to fly, from a handling quality standpoint, it feels a lot like the simulator. Big differences. The simulator doesn't have motion. So now we get to feel all the the motions of the aircraft, the oscillations, vibrations, things that you get in in a real airplane.

Performance wise, our airplane actually seems to be going faster and climbing better than the simulator even predicted. So that's exciting news. Every time we go fly this airplane, we learn more about it. We learn something new. We also just learn how to be more efficient.

So our maintenance crew is getting very familiar with the airplane. They're able to process the airplane after landing and turn it around for the next flight in shorter and shorter time spans. So during envelope expansion, every flight we go out and we do something that hasn't been done yet with the airplane. And those are the test cards or test points that we're trying to reach. So every day we prove something new.

The airplane can can go higher, it can go faster, or it can go slower. But every everything we're doing is new. And that's the point of envelope expansion. And once we've expanded the envelope and there's nothing new left to do, then we're done and the airplane is ready to go. The success of block one was expanding both in altitude and airspeed to prove out the system performance, as well as the vehicle handling qualities.

And validate that it's matching predictions to give us confidence to proceed even further. And speed and altitude as we proceeded to supersonic test flights. you have to prove the air worthiness of handling qualities of the aircraft that each test point along the way to give you the confidence that you can continue to expand to both higher and faster speeds? Milestones accomplished in block one include flying up to an altitude of 43,000ft, reaching Mach 0. 95 just before supersonic flight.

Landing gear transitions to prove the airworthiness and the vehicle systems, both in the up and away configuration with gear up and the, landing gear down configuration. we're doing maneuver development sessions to make sure that the pilots and the test team know how we're going to go fly certain maneuvers for an upcoming mission. We have SIM rehearsals in the control room to make sure the control room team is fully trained. The maintenance crew is making sure the jet is completing all of its routine inspections and making sure the jets ready and airworthy to fly the next mission. We have the flight test engineering team putting all the products together to go support the actual flight test in terms of briefings and test scores.

And then we actually have the day of execution, where we go through briefings and the flights themselves and the debriefings.

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