Rutan does it again!

[AirDOGGe]

MONDAY, JUNE 21, 2004
1750 GMT (1:50 p.m. EDT)


Pilot Mike Melvill becomes the first "self-made" astronaut, and SpaceShipOne becomes the first passenger-carrying civilian flight vehicle into space.

Details below from Spaceflight Now.

The following statement was issued by NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe on today's private, non-government flight of SpaceShipOne:

"We applaud the remarkable achievement of Burt Rutan, Paul Allen and test pilot Mike Melvill following the first successful suborbital flight of SpaceShipOne.

"Not unlike the first U.S. and Soviet space travelers in 1961, and China's first successful spaceflight this year, these private citizens are pioneers in their own right. They are doing much to open the door to a new marketplace offering the experience of weightlessness and suborbital space flight to the public.

"We congratulate the SpaceShipOne team and wish all those who may follow safe flights."

The full report from pre-launch to post-landing came be found at:

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/ss1/status.html

Press photos can be viewed at:

http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/pressphotos.htm

[First time Juke]

Re: Rutan does it again!

Congratulations !

It was in the news here too. Outstanding work; that is the kinda work Burt Rutan is good at !

I wonder how the pics from the 104 kilometres altitude look like..pretty awesome I bet.

Juke

[Peashooter]

Re: Rutan does it again!

Congratulations !

It was in the news here too. Outstanding work; that is the kinda work Burt Rutan is good at !

I wonder how the pics from the 104 kilometres altitude look like..pretty awesome I bet.

Juke

Check www.scaled.com in a few days. They post the flight test report and select photos. Their server is way overloaded today. Peas

[Peashooter]

Re: Rutan does it again!

Wonder if the M&Ms were on the test card... It would make an awful NTSB finding: "...controls jammed by foreign object." Ask the Yak-52 guys.

Otherwise, a simply incredible feat! Gotta love Burt's tears of joy. Thanks for the on-site report, Tyson!!!

I recall the Long-EZ building process. Each chapter revealed more elegant simplicity. When considering optional gear, Rutan's rule was, "...throw said item up in the air; if it comes back down, it's too heavy."

My wife and I (read me!) got to visit with Mike Melvill at RAF in Mohave back in the Spring of '88. Things were much simpler then, but we still couldn't see the Scaled facilities due to proprietary work going on.

I'm turnin' wrenches tonight on my EZ's annual -- with a smile on my face! Peas

[Race 29]

Re: Rutan does it again! (Rutan on Jay Leno tonight)

Peas,
You truly are flying one of my dream airplanes! It ranks right up there with the Mustang in my book.

I saw the take off of the White Knight live on local news, then watched to firing of the rocket on the internet about an hour later. The video later in the day from inside the cockpit and from various parts around Spaceship One were incredible! Burt Rutan and Mike Melville are going to be on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" tonight (Tuesday 6-22-04) so I'm sure they show some video of the flight there.

Race 29

[AirDOGGe]

Re: Rutan does it again!

According to later reports, it wasn't all that comfortable a flight. Some "bugs" to wring out still.

The flight of the first private astronaut was not as perfect as it first appeared – a number of glitches occurred during the flight, some potentially catastrophic.

The revelations were made by Burt Rutan, designer of SpaceShipOne, which on Monday became the world's first privately funded craft to enter space. Until the team fully understands exactly what went wrong during the flight, he said, they will not go ahead with the pair of flights needed to claim the $10 million Ansari X-Prize.


The problem struck at the end of the rocket engine's firing time of about 70 seconds, just as Melvill reached space. "As I came out of the atmosphere I no longer had any attitude control," Melvill told New Scientist and other reporters. "If that had happened earlier, I would never have made it and you all would be looking sad right now."

There was also a loud bang behind him while the rocket engine was firing. The team believes this was caused by aerodynamic stresses crumpling a composite material fairing around the engine nozzle.

Melvill's first frightening moment on the historic flight came at the very instant he flipped the switch to turn on the hybrid rocket motor. The craft suddenly lurched over 90° to the right, and as soon as he brought it back to level it then rolled 90° to the right.

"I was ready to hit the switch" to turn off the motor and abort the flight, he said, but the craft remained steady and he was able to continue and achieve the 100 kilometre altitude that officially makes him an astronaut. This difficulty appears unrelated to the later failure of attitude control, Melvill said.


Despite Melvill's 25 years of piloting experimental craft, he found even the normal operation of the rocketship alarming, as it travelled faster and higher than any previous privately-built craft.

SpaceShipOne was travelling "faster than an M-16 rifle bullet", Rutan said, about around 2400 km/h (1500 mph) or mach 3.2. As it reentered the atmosphere, falling like a badminton shuttlecock almost straight down, the rushing air sounded like a hurricane, said Melvill.

"Coming down is frightening, because of that roaring sound," he said. "You can really hear how that vehicle is being pounded."

Until the exact causes of the anomalies are understood, there will be no X-Prize attempt, Rutan said: "There's no way we would fly again without knowing the cause and being sure we had fixed it."

[T. Adams]

Re: Rutan does it again!

Can't wait to see Tyson's pics too, but to tide us over check this out. All you Canon shooters, check out all the 600's in the one shot!!

http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/106156

[W J Pearce]

Re: Rutan does it again!

Awesome! Great stuff Tyson! Thanks for sharing.

Bill

[Peashooter]

Re: Rutan does it again!

When was the last time Paul Allen rode on the open tailgate of a Ford pickup truck? Or ever! Modest beginnings to many a man's dreams. Peas

[FlyinLo]

Re: Rutan does it again!

Here is the view from the cheap seats. A friend and I flew a Cessna from the bay area to Lancaster and another friend drove up from LA and picked us up and we joined the masses at the airport gate at 3AM Monday morning. It was dark when we took our position at the intersection of taxiways alpha and bravo. As the morning came we saw the VIPs arrive in their jets including the Citation X that arrived at sun up. I got the standard shots of the White Knight and Space Ship One taxiing out and taking off (look at the hands sticking out of the portholes and waving in the taxi shot), but also note the one shot on the take-off roll where the birds were startled and all jumped in the air and the trusty Nikon decided to focus on them instead of the aircraft.

We had all kinds of people down in the public viewing area. We even had the people who I was told wore foil over their heads to keep the aliens from scanning their brains.

Note on the shot of the boost that Photoshop managed to pull out some color in the rocket plume.

[FlyinLo]

Re: Rutan does it again!

A few shots of the gliding appraoch and landing. We got a bit of a different view than the VIP/press area. Space Ship One was in its flare right in front of us from where we stood.

[FlyinLo]

Re: Rutan does it again!

After SS1 landed, we were treated to a flyby of the White Knight followed by the chase aircraft. After everyone had calmed down from the excitement of the landing and many were starting to leave, they towed SS1 by the crowd with Mike Melvill standing on the back of it. Not too many EOS 1D's with big white lenses in this crowd, more like people with handheld camcorders and instamatics leaning against the ropes looking for the shot showing they were there when it happened. Very cool. Someone apparently handed over a sign that Mike held up and carried back to Burt stating the score: Space Ship One, Government Zero.

I had to make a choice this past weekend on whether to go to PRS or the launch, and while I would have loved to have watched the goings on at Stead, being in Mojave just seemed like the place to be to watch history, much like when I drove down to Edwards AFB years ago to watch the first landing from space of the Space Shuttle Columbia.

[AAFO_WSagar]

Re: Rutan does it again!

Wow! Thanks to all who were there, for sharing with the rest of us! That's what I love about this message board and the community that it's created with the extra functionality that it offers... if we can't be there, it's almost for sure, one of us will be!

Certainly one of the more special moments in aviation history... thanks again all for sharing!

Wayne

[rpzo]

Re: Rutan does it again!

Nice pics everyone, thanks for sharing. Definitely a moment to tell your grandkids about.

I didn't notice until looking closely at the pictures that it had a skid on the nose instead of a wheel. Does anyone know why they went with a front skid instead of a wheel? How fast was it moving when it put down on the skid?

Rick

[Race 29]

Re: Rutan does it again!

Tyson and Jeff,
Thanks so much for sharing your pictures, awesome job! Jeff, your pictures of the SS1 landing are the best I've seen yet! Do you mind if I use one as my wallpaper? Tyson, your capturing Burt Rutan's emotions are worthy of being in a history book. And, well, pictures do speak more than a thousand words. Deafening applause to the both of you!

Race 29