NASA Aeronautics

Official National Aeronautics and Space Administration Website

  • NASA’s Quesst Mission Marks X-59’s Historic First Flight

    NASA’s X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft took off for its historic first flight on Oct. 28, 2025, at 11:14 a.m. EDT from Lockheed Martin Skunk Works in Palmdale, California. The one-of-a-kind aircraft flew for 67 minutes before landing and taxiing to NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. NASA test pilot Nils Larson flew […]

  • NASA’s Quesst Mission Marks X-59’s Historic First Flight

    NASA’s X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft took off for its historic first flight on Oct. 28 at 11:14 a.m. EDT from Lockheed Martin Skunk Works in Palmdale, California. The one-of-a-kind aircraft flew for 67 minutes before landing and taxiing to NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. NASA test pilot Nils Larson flew the […]

  • NASA’s X-59 Completes First Flight, Prepares for More Flight Testing

    After years of design, development, and testing, NASA’s X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft took to the skies for the first time Oct. 28, marking a historic moment for the field of aeronautics research and the agency’s Quesst mission. The X-59, designed to fly at supersonic speeds and reduce the sound of loud sonic booms to […]

  • NASA Flights Study Cosmic Ray Effects for Air, Future Space Travelers

    Recent airborne science flights to Greenland are improving NASA’s understanding of space weather by measuring radiation exposure to air travelers and validating global radiation maps used in flight path planning. This unique data also has value beyond the Earth as a celestial roadmap for using the same instrumentation to monitor radiation levels for travelers entering […]

  • NASA Lab Builds New Aircraft to Support Complex Flight Research

    NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, is building a new subscale aircraft to support increasingly complex flight research, offering a more flexible and cost-effective alternative to crewed missions. The aircraft is being built by Justin Hall, chief pilot at NASA Armstrong’s Dale Reed Subscale Flight Research Laboratory, and Justin Link, a small uncrewed […]

  • NASA, Partners Push Forward with Remotely Piloted Airspace Integration 

    NASA and its partners recently tested a tool for remotely piloted operations that could enable operators to transport people and goods more efficiently within urban areas.   The team’s goal is to ensure that when these remotely piloted aircraft – including electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles (eVTOLs) – take to the skies, air traffic controllers […]

  • NASA’s X-59 Moves Toward First Flight at Speed of Safety

    As NASA’s one-of-a-kind X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft approaches first flight, its team is mapping every step from taxi and takeoff to cruising and landing – and their decision-making is guided by safety. First flight will be a lower-altitude loop at about 240 mph to check system integration, kicking off a phase of flight testing […]

  • NASA, War Department Partnership Tests Boundaries of Autonomous Drone Operations

    Through an ongoing collaboration, NASA and the Department of War are working to advance the future of modern drones to support long distance cargo transportation that could increase efficiency, reduce human workload, and enhance safety.   Researchers from NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley recently participated in a live flight demonstration showcasing how […]

  • NASA Tests Tools to Assess Drone Safety Over Cities

    A future with advanced air mobility aircraft populating the skies will require the U.S. to implement enhanced preflight planning that can mitigate potential risks well before takeoff – and NASA is working to develop the tools to make that happen.  Preflight planning is critical to ensuring safety in the complex, high-risk environments of the future […]

  • Epic Research Can Help Mars Missions

    The parachute of the Enhancing Parachutes by Instrumenting the Canopy, or EPIC, test experiment deploys following an air launch from an Alta X drone on June 4, 2025, at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. NASA researchers are developing technology to make supersonic parachutes safer and more reliable for delivering instruments and payloads […]