Everything about Scaled Composites Spaceshipone totally explained
SpaceShipOne is a
spaceplane that completed the first privately funded
human spaceflight on
June 21,
2004. It was developed by
Scaled Composites.
SpaceShipOne was an experimental
air-launched
suborbital spaceplane that used a
hybrid rocket motor. The design featured a unique "feathering"
reentry system where the rear half of the wing and the
twin tail booms folded upward along a hinge running the length of the wing; this increased drag while remaining stable. The achievements of SpaceShipOne are more comparable to the
X-15 than orbiting spacecraft like the
Space Shuttle. Accelerating a spacecraft to
orbital speed requires more than 60 times as much energy as lifting it to 100 km.
SpaceShipOne was developed by Mojave Aerospace Ventures (A joint venture between
Paul Allen and Scaled Composites,
Burt Rutan's aviation company, in their
Tier One program), without government funding. On
June 21,
2004, it made the first privately funded human spaceflight, and on
October 4, it won the $10-million
Ansari X PRIZE, by reaching 100 kilometers in altitude twice in a two-week period with the equivalent of three people on board, with no more than ten percent of the non-fuel weight of the spacecraft replaced between flights. Development costs were estimated to be $25-million, funded completely by
Paul Allen.
During its testing regimen, SpaceShipOne set a number of important "firsts", including first privately funded aircraft to exceed Mach 2 and Mach 3, first privately funded manned spacecraft to exceed
100km altitude, and first privately funded reusable spacecraft.
A common misattribution to SpaceShipOne is the first privately funded spacecraft, without qualifying it as manned. Prior unmanned privately funded space flights were successfully achieved by the
Orbital Sciences Pegasus since 1990 and the
Civilian Space eXploration Team 5 weeks earlier in May 2004. Scaled is also the subcontractor to Orbital Sciences who builds the composite wings and fins of their Pegasus rockets.
History
SpaceShipOne is registered with the
FAA as . 'N' is the prefix for US-registered aircraft; '328KF' was chosen by Scaled Composites to stand for 328
kilo feet (about
100 kilometers), the officially designated
edge of space. The original choice of registry number,
N100KM, was already taken. N328KF is registered as a
glider, reflecting the fact that most of its independent flight is unpowered.
SpaceShipOne's first flight,
01C, was an unmanned
captive carry flight test on
May 20 2003. Glide tests followed, starting with
flight 03G on
August 7,
2003. Its first powered flight,
flight 11P, was made on
December 17,
2003, the 100th anniversary of the first powered flight.
On
April 1,
2004, Scaled Composites received the first license for
sub-orbital rocket flights to be issued by the
US Department of Transportation. This license permitted the company to conduct powered test flights over the course of one year. On
June 17,
2004, Mojave Airport reclassified itself (part-time) as the
Mojave Spaceport.
Flight 15P on
June 21,
2004, was SpaceShipOne's first
spaceflight, and the first privately funded human spaceflight. Ansari X PRIZE flights followed, with
flight 17P on
October 4,
2004, winning the prize.
Retirement
SpaceShipOne's spaceflights were watched by large crowds at Mojave Spaceport. A fourth suborbital flight, Flight 18P, was originally scheduled for
October 13,
2004. However, Burt Rutan decided not to risk damage to the historic craft, and cancelled it and all future flights.
On
July 25,
2005 SpaceShipOne was brought to the
Oshkosh Airshow in
Oshkosh,
Wisconsin. After the airshow, Mike Melvill and crew flew the
White Knight, carrying SpaceShipOne, to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, where Mike spoke to a group of about 300 military and civilian personnel. Later in the evening, Mike gave a presentation at the Dayton Engineers Club, entitled "Some Experiments in Space Flight", in honor of Wilbur Wright's now famous presentation to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1901 entitled "Some Experiments in Flight." The White Knight then transported SpaceShipOne to the
Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum to be put on display. It was unveiled on Wednesday
October 5,
2005 in the Milestones of Flight gallery and is now on display to the public in the main atrium between the
Spirit of St. Louis and the
Bell X-1.
SpaceShipOne became a popular
model rocket in 2004.
Estes Industries currently offers several flying model rockets of SpaceShipOne. A piece of SpaceShipOne's
carbon fiber material was launched aboard the
New Horizons mission to
Pluto in 2006.
Future efforts
The development of a larger, more powerful space plane capable of reaching 120km was announced in 2004. It will be named
Scaled Composites SpaceShipTwo, and is currently under development by
The Spaceship Company, a joint venture between Scaled Composites and
Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group, as part of the
Tier 1b program. The
Virgin Galactic spaceliner plans to operate a fleet of five of these craft in passenger-carrying
private spaceflight service starting in late
2009.
The vehicle itself won't be unveiled to the public until just before flight testing starts, expected in early 2008. Following a series of 50 – 100 test flights, the first paying customers are expected to fly aboard the craft in late 2009. In August 2005, Virgin Galactic stated that if the upcoming suborbital service with SpaceShipTwo is successful, the follow-up
SpaceShipThree will be an orbital craft.
Flights
Mojave Airport Civilian Flight Test Center. Flights were numbered, starting with flight 01 on
May 20 2003. One or two letters are appended to the number to indicate the type of mission. An appended
C indicates that the flight was a captive carry,
G indicates an unpowered glide, and
P indicates a powered flight. If the actual flight differs in category from the intended flight, two letters are appended: the first indicating the intended mission and the second the mission actually performed.
In the table below, the "top speed" reported is the
Mach number at burn-out (the end of the rocket burn). This isn't an absolute speed.
The flights were accompanied by two
chase planes; an
Extra 300 owned and flown by Chuck Coleman, and a
Beechcraft Starship.
Astronauts
The SpaceShipOne pilots came from a variety of
aerospace backgrounds.
Mike Melvill is a
test pilot,
Brian Binnie was a Navy pilot, and
Doug Shane and
Peter Siebold are engineers at Scaled Composites. They qualified to fly SpaceShipOne by training on the
Tier One flight simulator and in White Knight and other Scaled Composites aircraft.
Specifications
Further Information
Get more info on 'Scaled Composites Spaceshipone'.
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