English: (from left to right) NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free, California Senior Economic Advisor to the Governor Dee Dee Myers, Lockheed Martin Executive Vice President of Aeronautics Greg Ulmer, NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy, Low Boom Flight Demonstrator Project Manager Cathy Bahm, Lockheed Martin X-59 Project Manager David Richardson, Lockheed Martin Skunk Works Vice President and General Manager John Clark, and NASA Associate Administrator for the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate Bob Pearce pose in front of the agency’s X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft at a January 12, 2024 event at Lockheed Martin Skunk Works in Palmdale, California. The X-59 is the centerpiece of NASA’s Quesst mission, which seeks to solve one of the major barriers to supersonic flight over land, currently banned in the United States, by making sonic booms quieter.