(Web Desk) - NASA’s $247 million supersonic jet dubbed the “Son of Concorde” has broken the sound barrier for the first time after it zoomed at more than 700mph in a test flight. It’s the first step towards a return of super fast flights between London and New York.
NASA’s X-59 took off from Edwards Air Force Base in California before zooming over the desert landscape at over 700mph.
But the supersonic jet is expected to blow this top speed out of the water “in the coming days”, according to NASA’s ambitious team.
NASA’s administrator Jared Isaacman said the X-59 will hit a whopping 925mph in its next flight.
“X–59 is getting ready for its quiet supersonic debut”, he added.
It usually takes just over seven hours to fly from London to New York.
But faster-than-sound travel would cut that time by more than half – to just three hours.
The original Concorde was banned in 2003 for generating crushingly loud sound waves.
But NASA’s new elite jet has been designed to muffle the deafening supersonic boom of breaking the sound-barrier to a mere “thump”.
NASA’s project manager Lori Ozoroski previously described the sound as “like a car door closing” – a big improvement on the “boom” of older supersonic jets. In the past, the shockwave has been so big it rattled windows on the ground.
But NASA hopes its plane’s new streamlined design will stop the huge thunderclap sound of the sound barrier being broken.
The most striking part of the new design is the jet’s needle-like nose.
The ultra-thin point takes up almost a third of the X-59’s total length and is designed to break up the sonic shockwave.
The super-thin nose means that the cockpit is set far back on the plane – and doesn’t have any front-facing windows.
Instead, the pilot steers through several video displays using augmented reality and camera footage.