Scaled Composites is an American aerospace company founded by Burt Rutan and currently owned by Northrop Grumman. It is located at the Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, California, United States. Founded to develop experimental aircraft, the company now focuses on designing and developing concept craft and prototype fabrication processes for aircraft and other vehicles. It is known for unconventional designs, for its use of non-metal, composite materials, and for winning the Ansari X Prize with its experimental spacecraft SpaceShipOne.
The Ansari X Prize was a space competition in which the X Prize Foundation offered a US$10,000,000 prize for the first non-government organization to launch a reusable crewed spacecraft into space twice within two weeks. It was modeled after early 20th-century aviation prizes, and aimed to spur development of low-cost spaceflight.
SpaceShipOne is an experimental air-launched rocket-powered aircraft with sub-orbital spaceflight capability at speeds of up to 900 m/s (3,000 ft/s), using a hybrid rocket motor. The design features a unique "feathering" atmospheric reentry 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; increasing drag while remaining stable. 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". Both craft were developed and flown by Mojave Aerospace Ventures, 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.
The Canadian Arrow was a privately funded, early-2000s rocket and space tourism project concept founded by London, Ontario, Canada entrepreneurs Geoff Sheerin, Dan McKibbon and Chris Corke. The project's objective was to take the first civilians into space, on a vertical sub-orbital spaceflight reaching an altitude of 112 km.
Elbert Leander "Burt" Rutan is a retired American aerospace engineer and entrepreneur noted for his originality in designing light, strong, unusual-looking, and energy-efficient air and space craft. He designed the record-breaking Voyager, which in 1986 was the first plane to fly around the world without stopping or refueling, and the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer, which in 2006 set the world record for the fastest and longest nonstop non-refueled circumnavigation flight in history. In 2004, Rutan's sub-orbital spaceplane design SpaceShipOne became the first privately funded spacecraft to enter the realm of space, winning the Ansari X-Prize that year for achieving the feat twice within a two-week period.
William Brian Binnie is a former United States Navy officer and one of the test pilots for SpaceShipOne, the experimental spaceplane developed by Scaled Composites and flown from 2003–2004.
Peter Siebold 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 April 8, 2004, Siebold piloted the second powered test flight of SpaceShipOne, flight 13P, which reached a top speed of Mach 1.6 and an altitude of 32.0 kilometers. On October 31, 2014, Siebold and Michael Alsbury were piloting the SpaceShipTwo VSS Enterprise on flight PF04, when the craft came apart in mid-air and then crashed, killing Alsbury and injuring Siebold.
Michael Winston Melvill is a world-record-breaking pilot and one of the test pilots for SpaceShipOne, the experimental spaceplane developed by Scaled Composites. Melvill piloted SpaceShipOne on its first flight past the edge of space, flight 15P on June 21, 2004, thus becoming the first commercial astronaut and the 435th person to go into space. He was also the pilot on SpaceShipOne's flight 16P, the first competitive flight in the Ansari X Prize competition.
Flight 15P of SpaceShipOne (X0) was the first privately funded human spaceflight. It took place on June 21, 2004. It was the fourth powered test flight of the Tier One program, the previous three test flights having reached much lower altitudes. The flight carried only its pilot, Mike Melvill, who thus became the first non-governmental astronaut.
The Mojave Air and Space Port, also known as the Civilian Aerospace Test Center, is in Mojave, California, United States, at an elevation of 2,801 feet (854 m). It is the first facility to be licensed in the United States for horizontal launches of reusable spacecraft, being certified as a spaceport by the Federal Aviation Administration on June 17, 2004. The facility covers 2,998 acres and has three runways.
Tier One was a Scaled Composites' 1990s–2004 program of suborbital human spaceflight using the reusable spacecraft SpaceShipOne and its launcher White Knight. The craft was designed by Burt Rutan, and the project was funded 20 million US Dollars by Paul Allen. In 2004 it made the first privately funded human spaceflight and won the 10 million US Dollars Ansari X Prize for the first non-governmental reusable manned spacecraft.
Virgin Galactic is an American British spaceflight company within the Virgin Group. It is developing commercial spacecraft and aims to provide suborbital spaceflights to space tourists and suborbital launches for space science missions. SpaceShipTwo, Virgin Galactic's suborbital spacecraft, is air launched from beneath a carrier airplane known as White Knight Two.
VSS Enterprise was the first SpaceShipTwo (SS2) spaceplane, built by Scaled Composites for Virgin Galactic. As of 2004, it was planned to be the first of five commercial suborbital SS2 spacecraft planned by Virgin Galactic. It was also the first ship of the Scaled Composites Model 339 SpaceShipTwo class, based on upscaling the design of record-breaking SpaceShipOne.
The Scaled Composites Model 339 SpaceShipTwo (SS2) is an air-launched suborbital spaceplane type designed for space tourism. It is manufactured by The Spaceship Company, a California-based company owned by Virgin Galactic.
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 Galactic became the sole owner. TSC was formed to own the technology created by Scaled for Virgin Galactic's Virgin SpaceShip program. This includes developments on the care-free reentry system and cantilevered-hybrid rocket motor, licensed from Paul Allen and Burt Rutan's Mojave Aerospace. The company is manufacturing Virgin Galactic's spacecraft and will sell spacecraft to other buyers. The suborbital launch system offered will include the SpaceShipTwo spacecraft and the White Knight Two carrier aircraft.
RocketMotorTwo (RM2) is a family of hybrid rocket engines developed for the Scaled Composites SpaceShipTwo suborbital spaceplane.
The VSS Enterprise crash occurred on October 31, 2014, when the VSS Enterprise, a SpaceShipTwo experimental spaceflight test vehicle operated by Virgin Galactic, suffered a catastrophic in-flight breakup during a test flight and crashed in the Mojave Desert near Cantil, California. Co-pilot Michael Alsbury was killed and pilot Peter Siebold was seriously injured.
Michael Tyner Alsbury was an American test pilot for Scaled Composites. He died on October 31, 2014, during test flight PF04 of the Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo VSS Enterprise.
VSS Unity VP-03 was a sub-orbital spaceflight of the SpaceShipTwo-class VSS Unity which took place on 13 December 2018, piloted by Mark P. Stucky and co-piloted by Frederick W. "CJ" Sturckow. VSS Unity was carried aloft by the White Knight Two carrier plane before being released. The spacecraft reached an apogee of 82.7 km (51.4 mi), the flight satisfied the United States definition of spaceflight, but fell short of the Kármán line, the internationally accepted standard. The flight was operated by Virgin Galactic, a private company led by Richard Branson which intends to conduct space tourism flights in the future. It was the first crewed spaceflight from U.S. soil since the Space Shuttle mission STS-135 in 2011.
Mark P. "Forger" Stucky is an American test pilot and commercial astronaut. In these roles, he is an employee of Virgin Galactic, a private spaceflight company which is developing sub-orbital space tourism flights.
