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SpaceShipOne is an experimental air-launched rocket-powered aircraft with sub-orbital spaceflight capability at speeds of up to 3,000 ft/s (900 m/s, 3240 km/h), using a hybrid rocket motor. The design features a unique " feathering"
atmospheric reentry Atmospheric entry is the movement of an object from outer space into and through the gases of an atmosphere of a planet, dwarf planet, or natural satellite. There are two main types of atmospheric entry: ''uncontrolled entry'', such as the entr ...
system where the rear half of the wing and the twin tail booms folds 70 degrees upward along a hinge running the length of the wing; this increases
drag Drag or The Drag may refer to: Places * Drag, Norway, a village in Tysfjord municipality, Nordland, Norway * ''Drág'', the Hungarian name for Dragu Commune in Sălaj County, Romania * Drag (Austin, Texas), the portion of Guadalupe Street adj ...
while retaining stability. SpaceShipOne completed the first crewed private spaceflight in 2004. That same year, it won the US$10 million Ansari X Prize and was immediately retired from active service. Its mother ship was named "
White Knight A white knight is a mythological figure and literary stock character. They are portrayed alongside a black knight as diametric opposites. A white knight usually represents a heroic warrior fighting against evil, with the role in medieval literatu ...
". Both craft were developed and flown by
Mojave Aerospace Ventures Mojave Aerospace Ventures (MAV) is a company founded by Paul Allen and Burt Rutan to handle the commercial spinoffs from the Tier One project. It owns the intellectual property arising from Tier One, and it is in turn owned by Allen (the majori ...
, which was a joint venture between Paul Allen and Scaled Composites, Burt Rutan's aviation company. Allen provided the funding of approximately US$25 million. Rutan has indicated that ideas about the project began as early as 1994 and the full-time development cycle time to the 2004 accomplishments was about three years. The vehicle first achieved supersonic flight on December 17, 2003, which was also the one-hundredth anniversary of the Wright Brothers' historic first powered flight. SpaceShipOne's first official spaceflight, known as flight 15P, was piloted by Mike Melvill. A few days before that flight, the Mojave Air and Space Port was the first commercial spaceport licensed in the United States. A few hours after that flight, Melvill became the first licensed U.S. commercial astronaut. The overall project name was " Tier One" which has evolved into
Tier 1b Tier may refer to: Groupings *Organizational, a ranking relationship involving order in a collective and its subordinate components *Ranking, a relationship involving order between a set of observations or variables *Data center tiers, Telecommu ...
with a goal of taking a successor ship's first passengers into space. The achievements of SpaceShipOne are more comparable to those of the X-15 than to those of orbiting spacecraft like the Space Shuttle. Accelerating a spacecraft to orbital speed requires more than 60 times as much energy as accelerating it to Mach 3. It would also require an elaborate heat shield to safely dissipate that energy during re-entry. SpaceShipOne's official model designation is Scaled Composites Model 316.


Design


Design goal

The Scaled Composites Model 316, known as SpaceShipOne, was a spaceplane designed to: * Carry three humans (one of them a pilot) in a sea-level pressurized cabin. * Be propelled by rocket from an altitude of to in excess of . * Reenter atmosphere and shed kinetic energy in an aerodynamically stable configuration. * Glide transonically and subsonically. * Land horizontally on a standard runway.


Vehicle description

The fuselage is cigar-shaped, with an overall diameter of about . The main structure is of a graphite/
epoxy Epoxy is the family of basic components or cured end products of epoxy resins. Epoxy resins, also known as polyepoxides, are a class of reactive prepolymers and polymers which contain epoxide groups. The epoxide functional group is also coll ...
composite material. From front to back, it contains the crew cabin, oxidizer tank, fuel casing, and rocket nozzle. The craft has short, wide wings, with a span of and a
chord Chord may refer to: * Chord (music), an aggregate of musical pitches sounded simultaneously ** Guitar chord a chord played on a guitar, which has a particular tuning * Chord (geometry), a line segment joining two points on a curve * Chord ( ...
of . There are large vertical tailbooms mounted on the end of each wing, with horizontal stabilizers protruding from the tailbooms. It has gear for horizontal landings. The overall mass of the fully fueled craft is , of which is taken by the fully loaded rocket motor. Empty mass of the spacecraft is , including the empty motor casing. Originally the nozzle protruded from the back, but this turned out to be aerodynamically disadvantageous. In June 2004, between flights 14P and 15P, a fairing was added, smoothly extending the fuselage shape to meet the flared end of the nozzle. On flight 15P the new fairing overheated, due to being black on the inside and facing a hot, black nozzle. The fairing softened, and the lower part crumpled inwards during boost. Following that flight the interior of the fairing was painted white, and some small stiffening ribs were added. The craft has a single unsteerable and unthrottleable hybrid rocket motor, a cold gas reaction control system, and aerodynamic control surfaces. All can be controlled manually. See the separate section below concerning the rocket engine. The reaction control system is the only way to control spacecraft attitude outside the atmosphere. It consists of three sets of thrusters: there are thrusters at each wingtip to control roll, at the top and bottom of the nose to control pitch, and at the sides of the fuselage to control yaw. All thrusters have redundant backups, so there are twelve thrusters in all. The aerodynamic control surfaces of SpaceShipOne are designed to operate in two distinct flight regimes, subsonic and supersonic. The supersonic flight regime is of primary interest during the boost phase of a flight, and the subsonic mode when gliding. There are separate upper and lower rudders, and elevons. These are controlled using aviation-style stick and pedals. In supersonic mode the trim tabs are controlled electrically, whereas the subsonic mode uses mechanical cable-and-rod linkage. The wings of SpaceShipOne can be pneumatically tilted forwards into an aerodynamically stable high-
drag Drag or The Drag may refer to: Places * Drag, Norway, a village in Tysfjord municipality, Nordland, Norway * ''Drág'', the Hungarian name for Dragu Commune in Sălaj County, Romania * Drag (Austin, Texas), the portion of Guadalupe Street adj ...
"feathered" shape. This removes most of the need to actively control attitude during the early part of reentry: Scaled Composites refer to this as "care-free reentry". One of the early test flights actually performed re-entry inverted, demonstrating the flexibility and inherent stability of Burt Rutan's "shuttlecock" design. This feathered reentry mode is claimed to be inherently safer than the behavior at similar speeds of the Space Shuttle. The Shuttle undergoes enormous aerodynamic stresses and must be precisely steered in order to remain in a stable glide. (Although this is an interesting comparison of behavior, it is not an entirely fair comparison of design concepts: the Shuttle starts reentry at much higher speed than SpaceShipOne, and so has some very different requirements. SpaceShipOne is more similar to the X-15 vehicle.) An early design called for a permanently
shuttlecock A shuttlecock (also called a birdie or shuttle) is a high-drag projectile used in the sport of badminton. It has an open conical shape formed by feathers or plastic (or a synthetic alternative) embedded into a rounded cork (or rubber) base. T ...
-like shape, with a ring of
feather Feathers are epidermal growths that form a distinctive outer covering, or plumage, on both avian (bird) and some non-avian dinosaurs and other archosaurs. They are the most complex integumentary structures found in vertebrates and a premier ...
-like stabilising fins. This would have made the spacecraft incapable of landing independently, requiring mid-air retrieval. This was deemed too risky, and the hybrid final design manages to incorporate the feathering capability into a craft that can land in a conventional manner. The tiltable rear sections of the wings and the tailbooms are collectively referred to as "the feather". The landing gear consists of two widely separated main wheels and a nose skid. These are deployed using springs, assisted by gravity. Once deployed, they cannot be retracted inflight. The spacecraft is incapable of independent takeoff from the ground. It requires a launch aircraft to carry it to launch altitude for an air launch. The parts of the craft that experience the greatest heating, such as the leading edges of the wings, have about of ablative thermal protection material applied. The main ingredient of this material was accidentally leaked to ''Air and Space''. If it flew with no thermal protection, the spacecraft would survive reentry but would be damaged. There is an acknowledged "known deficiency" with the spacecraft's aerodynamic design that makes it susceptible to roll excursions. This has been seen on SpaceShipOne flight 15P where wind shear caused a large roll immediately after ignition, and
SpaceShipOne flight 16P Flight 16P of SpaceShipOne was a spaceflight in the Scaled Composites Tier One, Tier One program that took place on September 29, 2004. It was the first competitive flight in the Ansari X PRIZE competition to demonstrate a non-governmental reus ...
where circumstances not yet fully understood caused multiple rapid rolls. This flaw is not considered dangerous, but in both of these flights led to the achievement of a much lower altitude than expected. The details of the flaw are not public.


Cabin

The spacecraft cabin, designed to hold three humans, is shaped as a short cylinder, diameter , with a pointed forward end. The pilot sits towards the front, and two passengers can be seated behind. The cabin is pressurized, maintaining a sea level breathable atmosphere. Oxygen is introduced to the cabin from a bottle, and carbon dioxide and water vapor are removed by absorbers. The occupants do not wear
spacesuit A space suit or spacesuit is a garment worn to keep a human alive in the harsh environment of outer space, vacuum and temperature extremes. Space suits are often worn inside spacecraft as a safety precaution in case of loss of cabin pressure, ...
s or breathing masks, because the cabin has been designed to maintain pressure in the face of faults: all windows and seals are doubled. The cabin has sixteen round double-pane windows, positioned to provide a view of the horizon at all stages of flight. The windows are small compared to the gaps between them, but there are sufficiently many for human occupants to patch together a moderately good view. The nose section can be removed, and there is also a hatch below the rear windows on the left side. Crew ingress and egress is possible by either route.


Spaceplane navigation

The core of the spacecraft avionics is the System Navigation Unit (SNU). Together with the Flight Director Display (FDD), it comprises the Flight Navigation Unit. The unit was developed jointly by Fundamental Technology Systems and Scaled Composites. The SNU is a
GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a Radionavigation-satellite service, satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of t ...
-based inertial navigation system, which processes spacecraft sensor data and subsystem health data. It downlinks telemetry data by radio to mission control. The FDD displays data from the SNU on a color
LCD A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat-panel display or other electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals combined with polarizers. Liquid crystals do not emit light directly but in ...
. It has several distinct display modes for different phases of flight, including the boost phase, coast, reentry, and gliding. The FDD is particularly important to the pilot during the boost and coast phase in order to "turn the corner" and null rates caused by asymmetric thrust. A mix of commercial and bespoke software is used in the FDD.


Hybrid rocket engine

Tier One uses a hybrid rocket engine supplied by SpaceDev, with solid
hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene Hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene (HTPB) is an oligomer of butadiene terminated at each end with a hydroxyl functional group. It reacts with isocyanates to form polyurethane polymers. HTPB is a translucent liquid with a color similar to wax paper a ...
(HTPB, or rubber)
fuel A fuel is any material that can be made to react with other substances so that it releases energy as thermal energy or to be used for work. The concept was originally applied solely to those materials capable of releasing chemical energy but ...
and liquid nitrous oxide oxidizer. It generates of thrust, and can burn for about . The physical layout of the engine is novel. The oxidizer tank is a primary structural component, and is the only part of the engine that is structurally connected to the spacecraft: the tank is in fact an integral part of the spacecraft fuselage. The tank is a short cylinder of diameter approximately , with domed ends, and is the forwardmost part of the engine. The fuel casing is a narrow cylinder cantilevered to the tank, pointing backwards. The cantilevered design means that a variety of motor sizes can be accommodated without changing the interface or other components. The
nozzle A nozzle is a device designed to control the direction or characteristics of a fluid flow (specially to increase velocity) as it exits (or enters) an enclosed chamber or pipe. A nozzle is often a pipe or tube of varying cross sectional area, a ...
is a simple extension of the fuel casing; the casing and nozzle are actually a single component, referred to as the CTN (case, throat, and nozzle). Burt Rutan has applied for a patent on this engine configuration. There is considerable use of composite materials in the engine design. The oxidizer tank consists of a composite liner with graphite/
epoxy Epoxy is the family of basic components or cured end products of epoxy resins. Epoxy resins, also known as polyepoxides, are a class of reactive prepolymers and polymers which contain epoxide groups. The epoxide functional group is also coll ...
over-wrap and titanium interface flanges. The CTN uses a high-temperature composite insulator with a graphite/epoxy structure. Incorporating the solid fuel (and hence the main part of the engine) and the ablative nozzle into this single bonded component minimizes the possible leak paths. The oxidizer tank and CTN are bolted together at the main valve bulkhead, which is integrated into the tank. There are O-rings at the interface to prevent leakage; this is the main potential leak path in the engine. The ignition system, main control valve, and injector are mounted on the valve bulkhead, inside the tank. Slosh baffles are also mounted on this bulkhead. Because the oxidizer is stored under pressure, no pump is required. The tank liner and the fuel casing are built in-house by Scaled Composites. The tank over-wrap is supplied by Thiokol. The ablative nozzle is supplied by
AAE Aerospace AAE may refer to: Aviation * Above aerodrome elevation, an altitude given as above the nearest aerodrome or airport * Académie de l'air et de l'espace, the French national Air and Space Academy * Xpress Air (ICAO airline designator) in the Unite ...
. The oxidizer fill, vent, and dump system is supplied by
Environmental Aeroscience Corporation A biophysical environment is a life, biotic and Abiotic component, abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development, and evolution. A biophysical environ ...
. The remaining components—the ignition system, main control valve, injector, tank bulkheads, electronic controls, and solid fuel casting—are supplied by SpaceDev. The CTN must be replaced between firings. This is the only part of the craft, other than the fuel and oxidizer themselves, that must be replaced. The solid fuel is cast with four holes. This has the disadvantage that it is possible for chunks of fuel between the holes to become detached during a burn and obstruct the flow of oxidizer and exhaust. Such situations tend to rapidly self-correct. The oxidizer tank is filled and vented through its forward bulkhead, on the opposite side of the tank from the fuel and the rest of the engine. This improves safety. It is filled to a pressure of at
room temperature Colloquially, "room temperature" is a range of air temperatures that most people prefer for indoor settings. It feels comfortable to a person when they are wearing typical indoor clothing. Human comfort can extend beyond this range depending on ...
. The nozzle has an expansion ratio of 25:1, which is optimized for the upper part of the atmosphere. A different nozzle, with an expansion ratio of 10:1, is used for test firing on the ground. The nozzles are black on the outside, but for aerodynamic testing, red dummy nozzles are used instead. The rocket is not throttleable. Once lit, the burn can be aborted, but the power output cannot otherwise be controlled. The thrust in fact varies, for two reasons. Firstly, as the pressure in the oxidizer tank decreases, the flow rate reduces, reducing thrust. Secondly, in the late stages of a burn the oxidizer tank contains a mixture of liquid and gaseous oxidizer, and the power output of the engine varies greatly depending on whether it is using liquid or gaseous oxidizer at a particular moment. (The liquid, being far denser, allows a greater burn rate.) Both the fuel and oxidizer can be stored without special precautions, and they do not burn when brought together without a significant source of heat. This makes the rocket far safer than conventional liquid or solid rockets. It is also relatively non-polluting: the combustion products are water vapor, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, nitrogen, and some carbon monoxide. The engine was upgraded in September 2004, between flights 15P and 16P. The upgrade increased the oxidizer tank size, to provide greater thrust in the early part of the burn, allow a longer burn, and delay the onset of the variable thrust phase at the end of the burn. Prior to the upgrade the engine generated of thrust and could burn for . After the upgrade it was capable of thrust and an burn.


Launch aircraft

Tier One's launch aircraft, Scaled Composites Model 318, known as White Knight, is designed to take off and land horizontally and attain an altitude of about , all while carrying the Tier One spacecraft in a parasite aircraft configuration. Its propulsion is by twin turbojets: afterburning J-85-GE-5 engines, rated at of thrust each. It has the same cabin, avionics, and trim system as SpaceShipOne. This means it can
flight-qualify To flight-qualify is to take a product, process, or material and test it in order to prove that it will withstand the environment of aerodynamic or space flight. This process can include the following tests and processes: * parts screening * therm ...
almost all components of SpaceShipOne. It also has a high thrust-to-weight ratio and large speed brakes. These features combined allow it to be used as a high-fidelity moving platform flight simulator for SpaceShipOne. White Knight is also equipped with a trim system which (when activated) causes it to have the same glide profile as SpaceShipOne; this allows the pilots to practice for landing SpaceShipOne. The same pilots fly White Knight as fly SpaceShipOne. The aircraft's distinctive shape features long, thin wings, in a flattened "W" shape, with a wingspan of , dual tailplanes, and four wheels (front and rear at each side). The rear wheels retract, but the front ones, which are steerable, are permanently deployed, with small fairings, referred to as "spats", in front. Another way to look at the overall shape is as two conventional planes, with very thin fuselages, side by side and joined at their wingtips, with the cockpit and engines mounted at the point of joining. Although White Knight was developed for certain roles in the Tier One program, it is a very capable aircraft in its own right. Scaled Composites describe it as a "high-altitude research aircraft".


Flight profile

SpaceShipOne takes off from the ground, attached to White Knight in a parasite configuration, and under White Knight's power. The combination of SpaceShipOne and White Knight can take off, land, and fly under jet power to high altitude. A captive carry flight is one where the two craft land together without launching SpaceShipOne; this is one of the main abort modes available. For launch, the combined craft flies to an altitude of around , which takes about an hour. SpaceShipOne is then drop-released, and briefly glides unpowered. Rocket ignition may take place immediately, or may be delayed. If the rocket is never lit then SpaceShipOne can glide down to the ground. This is another major abort mode, in addition to being flown deliberately in glide tests. The rocket engine is ignited while the spacecraft is gliding. Once under power, it is raised into a 65° climb, which is further steepened in the higher part of the trajectory. The maximum acceleration during ascent was recorded at 1.70G. By the end of the burn the craft is flying upwards at some multiple of the speed of sound, up to about and
Mach Mach may refer to Mach number, the speed of sound in local conditions. It may also refer to: Computing * Mach (kernel), an operating systems kernel technology * ATI Mach, a 2D GPU chip by ATI * GNU Mach, the microkernel upon which GNU Hurd is bas ...
3.5, and it continues to coast upwards unpowered (i.e.
ballistically Ballistics is the field of mechanics concerned with the launching, flight behaviour and impact effects of projectiles, especially ranged weapon munitions such as bullets, unguided bombs, rockets or the like; the science or art of designing an ...
). If the burn was long enough then it will exceed an altitude of , at which height the atmosphere presents no appreciable resistance, and the craft experiences free fall for a few minutes. While at apogee the wings are reconfigured into high-drag mode. As the craft falls back it achieves high speeds comparable to those achieved on the way up; when it subsequently reenters the atmosphere it decelerates violently, up to 5.75G. At some altitude between and it reconfigures into low-drag glider mode, and glides down to a landing in about 20 minutes. White Knight takes longer to descend, and typically lands a few minutes after SpaceShipOne.


Specifications


Development and winning the X Prize

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. On October 4, it won the US$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 and with no more than ten percent of the non-fuel weight of the spacecraft replaced between flights. Development costs were estimated to be , funded completely by Paul Allen. During its test program, SpaceShipOne set a number of important "firsts", including first privately funded aircraft to exceed Mach 2 and Mach 3, first privately funded crewed spacecraft to exceed 100km altitude, and first privately funded reusable crewed spacecraft. SpaceShipOne was registered with the FAA as ''N'' is the prefix for US-registered aircraft; ''328KF'' was chosen by Scaled Composites to stand for 328 kilofeet (about 100 kilometers), the officially designated
edge of space Outer space, commonly shortened to space, is the expanse that exists beyond Earth and its atmosphere and between celestial bodies. Outer space is not completely empty—it is a near-perfect vacuum containing a low density of particles, predo ...
. The original choice of registry number, , was already taken. N328KF is registered as a
glider Glider may refer to: Aircraft and transport Aircraft * Glider (aircraft), heavier-than-air aircraft primarily intended for unpowered flight ** Glider (sailplane), a rigid-winged glider aircraft with an undercarriage, used in the sport of glidin ...
, reflecting the fact that most of its independent flight is unpowered. SpaceShipOne's first flight, 01C, was an uncrewed captive 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
suborbital A sub-orbital spaceflight is a spaceflight in which the spacecraft reaches outer space, but its trajectory intersects the atmosphere or surface of the gravitating body from which it was launched, so that it will not complete one orbital r ...
rocket flights to be issued by the US Office of Commercial Space Transportation. This license permitted the company to conduct powered test flights over the course of one year. On June 17, 2004, under the leadership of airport CEO
Stuart O. Witt Stuart O. Witt (born November 1, 1952) is the Founder and Owner of S.O. Witt & Associates, LLC. Witt is the former CEO of Mojave Air and Space Port and a member of the National Space Council Users Advisory Group. Biography Early life and educati ...
, Mojave Airport reclassified itself as the Mojave Air and Space Port. Flight 15P on June 21, 2004, was SpaceShipOne's first spaceflight, and the first privately funded human spaceflight. There were a few control problems, but these were resolved prior to the Ansari X PRIZE flights that followed, with flight 17P to 112 km on October 4, 2004,FAI Record ID #9881 – Altitude above the earth's surface with or without maneuvres of the aerospacecraft, Class P-1 (Suborbital missions)

MassTime
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Fédération Aéronautique Internationale The (; FAI; en, World Air Sports Federation) is the world governing body for air sports, and also stewards definitions regarding human spaceflight. It was founded on 14 October 1905, and is headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland. It maintai ...
(FAI).'' Retrieved: 21 September 2014.
winning the prize. The SpaceShipOne Team was awarded the Space Achievement Award by the Space Foundation in 2005.


Flights

On 17 December 2003—on the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers first powered flight of an aircraft—''SpaceShipOne'', piloted by Brian Binnie on Flight 11P, made its first
rocket-powered A rocket-powered aircraft or rocket plane is an aircraft that uses a rocket engine for propulsion, sometimes in addition to airbreathing jet engines. Rocket planes can achieve much higher speeds than similarly sized jet aircraft, but typicall ...
flight and became the first privately built craft to achieve supersonic flight. All of the flights of SpaceShipOne were from the 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. File:The World's First Five Spaceplanes.png, 350px, SpaceShipOne ranks among the world's first spaceplanes in the first 50 years of
human spaceflight Human spaceflight (also referred to as manned spaceflight or crewed spaceflight) is spaceflight with a crew or passengers aboard a spacecraft, often with the spacecraft being operated directly by the onboard human crew. Spacecraft can also be ...
, with the
North American X-15 The North American X-15 is a hypersonic rocket-powered aircraft. It was operated by the United States Air Force and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration as part of the X-plane series of experimental aircraft. The X-15 set speed an ...
, Space Shuttle, Buran, and
Boeing X-37 The Boeing X-37, also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV), is a reusable robotic spacecraft. It is boosted into space by a launch vehicle, then re-enters Earth's atmosphere and lands as a spaceplane. The X-37 is operated by the United Stat ...
. SpaceShipOne is the second spaceplane to have launched from a mother ship, preceded only by the
North American X-15 The North American X-15 is a hypersonic rocket-powered aircraft. It was operated by the United States Air Force and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration as part of the X-plane series of experimental aircraft. The X-15 set speed an ...
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North American X-15 The North American X-15 is a hypersonic rocket-powered aircraft. It was operated by the United States Air Force and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration as part of the X-plane series of experimental aircraft. The X-15 set speed an ...
rect 246 115 401 570 Space Shuttle rect 463 115 619 570 Buran rect 670 115 850 570 SpaceShipOne rect 884 115 1042 299
Boeing X-37 The Boeing X-37, also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV), is a reusable robotic spacecraft. It is boosted into space by a launch vehicle, then re-enters Earth's atmosphere and lands as a spaceplane. The X-37 is operated by the United Stat ...
rect 884 300 1042 570 Atlas V # See http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:ImageMap # for details on image maps.
The flights were accompanied by two chase planes—an Extra 300 owned and flown by
Chuck Coleman Charles Thomas Coleman a.k.a. Chuck Coleman is an American aviator, aerospace engineer, airshow and test pilot. He has worked as a design and performance engineer for several aircraft corporations such as McDonnell Aircraft Corporation, Bede Je ...
, and a
Beechcraft Starship The Beechcraft Starship is a twin-turboprop six- to eight-passenger pressurized business aircraft produced by Beech Aircraft Corporation. Development Development of the Starship began in 1979 when Beech decided to explore designs for a succes ...
.


Astronauts

The SpaceShipOne pilots came from a variety of aerospace backgrounds. Mike Melvill is a test pilot, Brian Binnie is a former Navy pilot, and
Peter Siebold Peter Siebold (born 1971) is a member of the Scaled Composites astronaut team. He is their Director of Flight Operations, and was one of the test pilots for SpaceShipOne and SpaceShipTwo, the experimental spaceplanes developed by the company. On ...
is an engineer 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.


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 taken to the Oshkosh Airshow in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. After the airshow, Mike Melvill and crew flew the
White Knight A white knight is a mythological figure and literary stock character. They are portrayed alongside a black knight as diametric opposites. A white knight usually represents a heroic warrior fighting against evil, with the role in medieval literatu ...
, carrying SpaceShipOne, to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, where Melvill spoke to a group of about 300 military and civilian personnel. Later in the evening, Melvill 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 The National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, also called the Air and Space Museum, is a museum in Washington, D.C., in the United States. Established in 1946 as the National Air Museum, it opened its main building on the Nat ...
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 with the ''
Spirit of St. Louis The ''Spirit of St. Louis'' (formally the Ryan NYP, registration: N-X-211) is the custom-built, single-engine, single-seat, high-wing monoplane that was flown by Charles Lindbergh on May 20–21, 1927, on the first solo nonstop transatlant ...
'', the
Bell X-1 The Bell X-1 (Bell Model 44) is a rocket engine–powered aircraft, designated originally as the XS-1, and was a joint National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics– U.S. Army Air Forces–U.S. Air Force supersonic research project built by Be ...
, and the Apollo 11 command module ''Columbia''. Commander Brian Binnie donated the flight suit and checklist used during his Ansari X Prize-winning flight to an auction benefitting Seattle's Museum of Flight. Entertainer and fundraising auctioneer Fred Northup Jr. purchased the flight suit and checklist book, and the flight suit is on display at the museum's Charles Simonyi Space Gallery. A piece of SpaceShipOne's carbon fiber material was launched aboard the ''
New Horizons ''New Horizons'' is an Interplanetary spaceflight, interplanetary space probe that was launched as a part of NASA's New Frontiers program. Engineered by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and the Southwest Research ...
'' mission to Pluto in 2006.


Replicas

A year after its appearance in the Oshkosh Airventure airshow, the Experimental Aircraft Association featured a full-scale replica of the spacecraft in a wing of its museum which housed other creations of Burt Rutan. Using the same fiberglass molds as the original, it was so exact in its replication—despite not having any doors or interior—that it was dubbed "Serial 2 Scaled" by Scaled Composites. Each detail in its appearance was matched, down to the N328KF registration number on its fuselage. It is so precise that, during a 7-minute video presentation held every hour on the half hour in the museum, it can display the two different modes of its 'feathering' ability, albeit through the aid of pulleys and wires (there is no machinery in the replica). Other full-scale replicas are at the William Thomas Terminal at
Meadows Field Airport Meadows Field is a public airport in Kern County, California, United States, three miles northwest of Downtown Bakersfield. It is the main airport for the Bakersfield area, and one of two international airports in the San Joaquin Valley. Also kn ...
in
Bakersfield Bakersfield is a city in Kern County, California, United States. It is the county seat and largest city of Kern County. The city covers about near the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley and the Central Valley region. Bakersfield's populat ...
the Mojave Spaceport's Legacy Park alongside the original Roton Atmospheric Test Vehicle, the
Flying Heritage Collection The Flying Heritage & Combat Armor Museum is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to the display and preservation of rare military aircraft, tanks and other military equipment. The plan is for the museum to reopen in 2023. On rotation in t ...
at Paine Field in Everett, and Google's Mountain View Campus. SpaceShipOne was also made into a model rocket in 2004.


Subsequent spacecraft

With the success of Tier One meeting its project goals, a successor project started in 2004 was
Tier 1b Tier may refer to: Groupings *Organizational, a ranking relationship involving order in a collective and its subordinate components *Ranking, a relationship involving order between a set of observations or variables *Data center tiers, Telecommu ...
. The successor ships are named SpaceShipTwo and
White Knight Two The Scaled Composites Model 348 White Knight Two (WK2) is a quadjet cargo aircraft that is used to lift the SpaceShipTwo spacecraft to release altitude. It was developed by Scaled Composites from 2007 to 2010 as the first stage of Tier 1b, a tw ...
. The name of the joint venture between Virgin Group and Scaled Composites is called
The Spaceship Company The Spaceship Company (TSC) is a British/American spacecraft manufacturing company that was founded by Burt Rutan and Richard Branson in mid-2005 and was jointly owned by Virgin Group (70%) and Scaled Composites (30%) until 2012 when Virgin Gal ...
, with a goal of carrying passengers under the name
Virgin Galactic Virgin Galactic is an American spaceflight company founded by Richard Branson and his British Virgin Group retains an 11.9% stake through Virgin Investments Limited. It is headquartered in California, and operates from New Mexico. The company i ...
, a spaceliner with an initial target of a commercial fleet of five spacecraft. In August 2005, Virgin Galactic stated that if the upcoming suborbital service with SpaceShipTwo is successful, the follow-up will be known as
SpaceShipThree SpaceShip III (SS3, also with Roman numeral III; formerly SpaceShipThree) is an upcoming class of spaceplanes by Virgin Galactic to follow SpaceShipTwo. It was first teased on the Virgin Galactic Twitter account on 25 February 2021 announcing the ...
. On 13 December 2018, VSS ''Unity'' achieved the SpaceShipTwo project's first suborbital space flight, VSS Unity VP-03, with two pilots, reaching an altitude of , and officially entering outer space by US standards.


Gallery

File:SpaceShipOne schematic.png, Hybrid rocket engine detail of SpaceShipOne
more information
. File:SpaceShipOne Takes Off photo D Ramey Logan.jpg, SpaceShipOne takes off File:Kluft-photo-SS1-landing-June-2004-Img 1406c.jpg, SpaceShipOne landing after its June 21, 2004 space flight ( Flight 15P) File:Ss1 smithsonian.jpg, SpaceShipOne in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. with the '' Spirit of Saint Louis'' and
Bell X-1 The Bell X-1 (Bell Model 44) is a rocket engine–powered aircraft, designated originally as the XS-1, and was a joint National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics– U.S. Army Air Forces–U.S. Air Force supersonic research project built by Be ...
''Glamorous Glennis'' File:Spaceship One.JPG File:SpaceShipOne Takeoff photo D Ramey Logan.jpg, SpaceShipOne taking off File:Exhausted SS1 Rocket engine in the Scale Composites building photo D Ramey Logan.jpg, Exhausted SS1 rocket engine in the Scaled Composites building File:suborbital_spaceflight_timeline.svg, Timeline of sub-orbital flights


See also

*
2004 in spaceflight This article outlines notable events occurring in 2004 in spaceflight Spaceflight (or space flight) is an application of astronautics to fly spacecraft into or through outer space, either with or without humans on board. Most spaceflight i ...
* '' Black Sky: The Race For Space'', 2005 documentary about SpaceShipOne * X-15 * SpaceShipTwo *
FAST20XX FAST20XX (Future High-Altitude High Speed Transport 20XX ) is a European Space Agency (ESA) program to develop the necessary technologies for a hypersonic suborbital spaceplane. Funding for the program was established under the European Commission' ...
ALPHA vehicle based on SpaceShipOne


References

* ''SpaceShipOne: An Illustrated History'' by Dan Linehan, foreword by
Arthur C. Clarke Sir Arthur Charles Clarke (16 December 191719 March 2008) was an English science-fiction writer, science writer, futurist, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host. He co-wrote the screenplay for the 1968 film '' 2001: A Spac ...
(Zenith Press, 2008). .


External links


Footage of SpaceShipOne landing and press conference with pilot Mike Melvill
{{DEFAULTSORT:Spaceship 1 Crewed spacecraft Individual rockets Individual spaceplanes Private spaceflight Reusable launch systems Rocket-powered aircraft Rutan aircraft Experimental vehicles Scaled Composites Tier One program 2000s United States experimental aircraft Individual aircraft in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution Individual spacecraft in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution Suborbital spaceflight Scaled Composites Vehicles introduced in 2003 Aircraft first flown in 2003 Spaceplanes American spacecraft