Going on a national tour
The final test of the success of the X-59 design will come in the third phase of the program, when NASA plans to fly the aircraft over communities throughout the United States. The agency wants to conduct X-59 flight tests over communities that are broadly representative of the United States, taking into account demographics, building construction, climate, geography and a number of other characteristics.
The ground-based microphone arrays will be put back into use, but NASA also plans to recruit community members who can share feedback about the sounds they hear each day during the flight tests. Coen said each community can conduct frequent flight tests for about a month, during which they can hear quieter and louder sounds ranging from 70 PldB to 90 PldB.
“Every day we’re going to fly over the community and fly the X-59 a little bit differently, so each flight is going to be either quiet or louder,” Coen said. Many people may not even hear anything at the bottom end, but higher-pitched sounds can approach “something quite annoying,” he said.
For the first community test, the X-59 will take off from NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base in California’s Mojave Desert and conduct supersonic test runs over an undisclosed neighborhood community that normally doesn’t hear the sonic booms from other test aircraft.
But further testing elsewhere in the United States would require an airfield capable of supporting the X-59’s 10,000-foot runway requirement. Although NASA has not yet finalized the list of designated communities for flight testing, dozens of major airports have runway lengths that can accommodate the X-59.
NASA’s X-59 supersonic research aircraft approaches a landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California on Thursday, March 26, 2026.
Community feedback and other data from the X-59 flight test program will eventually be shared with the US Federal Aviation Administration and the International Civil Aviation Organization, so regulators will have the evidence to establish new standards for supersonic flight.
“The goal is to develop a standard that allows for innovation and future supersonic flight, but still protects the public on the ground,” Coen said. “Phase 3, where the public is allowed to think about what they hear and how it affects them, is something I’m personally very much looking forward to.”
