This project consists of Spaceship One, the smaller of the two craft in the photo, and White Knight, the airborne launcher. White Knight is a turbo-jet aircraft, and Spaceship one, is of course, rocket-powered. Scaled Composites is fully funded by billionaire Paul Allen, one of the founders of Microsoft. Click on the logo below to go to the Scaled Composites site.
The first test of Spaceship One, in December 2003, consisted of an 11-second burn of its hybrid "rubber" (poly-butadiene) and nitrous oxide motor, taking it through the sound barrier and to an altitude of around 60,000 feet. On its return, one of the landing wheels collapsed, causing the craft to slew on the runway. This was, however a very minor difficulty. Following the gaining of a US Federal Aviation Authority licence to make sub-orbital manned flights without the constraints of US amateur rocketry rules, Spaceship One carried out a second successful test flight in April 2004. This time, a height of 105,000 feet (nearly 20 miles) was reached for a 40 second engine burn. See the picture on the right for an fine long-range view of Spaceship One ascending (picture by Scaled Composites). It seems likely that Scaled Composites will win the X-Prize soon, since the remaining testing consists only of extending the test regime to longer burn times until the required height is reached.
On 21st June, Mike Melville became the first astronaut of a private company when he took Spaceship One to a height of just over 100km. This was not an attempt on the X-Prize, as there were no passengers with him. The flight was also not without incident, as he suffered a brief loss of control shortly after starting his climb. A further failure of an aerofoil control also occurred at the peak height. However, back-up systems were used to regain control and Mike made a good landing, some 90 minutes after taking off from Mojave Spaceport in California, USA. The flight of Spaceship One made international news.
On September 29th and On October 4th, 2004, Mike Melville and Brian Binnie, respectively, piloted Spaceship One on the two flights required to qualify for the X-Prize and won the trophy. On the first of these, Spaceship One went into an unplanned roll near the top of the flight. There were no incidents on the second flight. Spacefleet congratulates Burt Rutan and his team of pilots, and Paul Allen, who provided the finance on this formidable feat of engineering and skill.
With the winning of the X-Prize now comes an agreement with Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Airways to construct a fleet of craft closely derived from Spaceship One which will take five passengers on a sub-orbital flight to 100km and over. The Space tourism market has started at last and is in the realms of science fiction no longer.
