Suggested Searches

2 min read

NASA Invites Media to See Progress on X-59 Forward-Windowless Cockpit

Artist rendering of the eXternal Vision System (XVS)
Artist rendering of the eXternal Vision System (XVS) as installed on the X-59 QueSST. The system blends virtual and augmented reality on a display screen mounted in what normally would be the pilot’s forward line of sight. Credits: NASA

Media are invited to NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., at 1:30 p.m. EDT on Monday, Aug. 26, 2019, to view progress on the eXternal Vision System (XVS) that will allow NASA’s X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology, or QueSST, aircraft pilots to fly without a forward-facing window.

Reporters will see actual XVS/X-59 cockpit display hardware that is currently undergoing flight testing at Langley, and hear from NASA experts and test pilots involved in the engineering, design and flight testing of the aircraft.

The X-59 is an experimental aircraft under construction that will fly for the first time in 2021. The aircraft’s XVS technology presents a combination of real-time imagery from externally mounted cameras with overlay of augmented reality symbology on a monitor in front of the pilot. The XVS is one of several solutions to help ensure the X-59’s design shape reduces a sonic boom to a gentle thump heard by people on the ground.

To attend this event, U.S. media must contact Sasha Ellis at 757-864-5473 or sasha.c.ellis@nasa.gov no later than noon Friday, Aug. 23. On the day of the event, media must wear flat, closed-toe shoes. Media planning to attend should bring at least one form of government-issued photo identification.

The XVS may represent the future architecture of supersonic commercial passenger and cargo aircraft. It is designed to create equivalent or better levels of performance and safety to that of forward-facing windows on today’s aircraft.

For more information on NASA’s Low-Boom Flight Demonstration, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/X59

-end-

Sasha Ellis/J.C. Hernandez
​Langley Research Center, Hampton, Va.
757-864-5473
sasha.c.ellis@nasa.gov