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SpaceShipOne
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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.
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Timeline
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2004 SpaceShipOne becomes the first privately-funded spaceplane to achieve spaceflight.
2004 The first Ansari X-Prize flight takes place of SpaceShipOne, which is competing with a number of spacecraft (including Canada's Da Vinci Project, claimed to be its closest rival) and will go on to win the prize on October 4th.
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Encyclopedia
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.
Replica 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 and every painstaking detail in its appearance was matched, down to the N328KF serial number on its fuselage. It is so precise that, during a video presentation held every 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 internal machinery in the replica).
Flights
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.
In the table below, the "top speed" reported is the Mach number at burn-out (the end of the rocket burn). This is not an absolute speed.
The flights were accompanied by two chase planes; an Extra 300 owned and flown by Chuck Coleman, and a Beechcraft Starship.
AstronautsThe 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.
SpecificationsExternal links
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