The Tupolev Tu-144 was the world's first supersonic passenger plane and constructed under the direction of the Soviet Tupolev design bureau headed by Alexei Tupolev. The maiden flight of a prototype Tu-144 was on December 31st, 1968 near Moscow, 2 months before the Anglo British Concorde. The Tu-144 first broke the sound barrier on June 5th 1969 and on July 15th 1969 it became the first commercial transport to exceed Mach 2 and the fastest commercial airliner ever.

A total of sixteen Tu-144s were manufactured. The planes were in service by the then state owned Soviet airline Aeroflot from 26th December 1975 - 1st June 1978. The last modified Tu-144 was used from 1996 - 1997 for NASA's High Speed Research program (HSR) to develop a new generation of supersonic passenger planes. The project was cancelled due to lack of funding in 1999, although it was regarded as a success.