Sep 29 2004
From The Space Library
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(New page: A privately funded rocket called SpaceShipOne became the first vehicle to complete a flight for the commercial spaceflight competition known as the Ansari X Prize. The X Prize comp...)
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A privately funded rocket called SpaceShipOne became the first vehicle to complete a flight for the commercial spaceflight competition known as the Ansari X Prize. The X Prize competition would award US$10 million to the first private organization to create a spacecraft transporting a pilot and payload, with the equivalent weight of two passengers, to an altitude of 100 kilometers (62.1 miles) above Earth's surface, twice in two weeks. California-based Scaled Composites had built SpaceShipOne, and the company's founder [[Burt Rutan]] had designed the vehicle. The spacecraft left California's Mojave Airport at 7:11 a.m. (PST), affixed to another aircraft. The aircraft released SpaceShipOne after attaining an altitude of 48,000 feet (9.1 miles or 14.6 kilometers). Although SpaceShipOne had some difficulty during its ascent, the vehicle's pilot Michael W. Melvill was able to guide the vehicle to a peak altitude of 337,500 feet (63.9 miles or 102.9 kilometers). However, Scaled Composites would have to repeat the feat within the subsequent two weeks to win the Ansari X Prize. (Scaled Composites, “SpaceShipOne Surpasses 100 Km Altitude on First X-Prize Flight,” news release, 29 September 2004; Peter Pae, “Craft Rolls On into Space in Bid for Prize,” Los Angeles Times, 30 September 2004.
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