Category Space Ship One

One of the more distinguishing features of SpaceShipOne is its windshield, made of sixteen 9-inch- (23-centimeter-) diameter windows. The windows are small and round to keep the weight low and the structural strength high. Good visibility for the pilot flying SpaceShipOne, during all phases of the mission, was an important design consideration. This determined the arrangement of the windows.

With a slight tilt of the head, the pilot could always keep the horizon in sight. For one of SpaceShipOne’s rocket-powered flights, this proved crucial when the avionics display went temporarily blank. However, similar to the Spirit of St. Louis, the windows do not allow the pilot to see directly ahead of the spacecraft during landing.

Each window has dual panes and dual seals. This redundancy helped prevent loss of cabin pressurization in the case of damage to a window. The outer panes are 5/16-inch – (0.79-centimeter-) thick, heat-resistant Lexan polycarbonate. They are separated by a 1 /4-inch (0.64-centimeter) gap from 5/16-inch – (0.79-centimeter-) thick Plexiglas inner panes. There are small vent holes in the outer panes to help prevent the window from fogging up. The inner panes took all the pressurization and when loaded, could deflect 0.2 inches (0.5 centime­ters). Even if the inner panes failed, the leak rate would be very low, and SpaceShipOne could easily glide back home. Airliner windows also commonly use a two-pane construction with vent holes.

The crew entered SpaceShipOne through a 26-inch – (66-centimeter-) diameter, dual-sealed plug door on the port side. The door does not have an external handle but does have an internal handle that the crew could grab and pull out. Just like the plugs on the sides of the cockpit, it is shaped so that the pressure inside the spaceship held the door in place.

The spacecraft was not designed to have ejection seats, in order to help keep the cost, weight, and complexity at a minimum.

The nose cone was an escape hatch. Once it was unlocked, the pilot uses a handle near his left foot to turn the nose cone on its gear ring. After a clockwise turn of only 7.5 degrees, the nose cone detached and fell free from SpaceShipOne. Figure 4.18 and figure 4.19 both show views after the nose cone was detached. During an emergency egress, the

Ґ л

Fig. 4.18. A 36-inch (91-centimeter) opening reveals the cockpit after the nose cone twists off. The crew could use this opening or the 26-inch- (66- centimeter-) diameter plug-style door on the left side of the cockpit for emergency egress if necessary. Mojave Aerospace Ventures LLC, photograph by

David M. Moore

rudder pedals as well as most of the instruments are dragged out of the cabin by the nose cone, clearing a 36-inch – (91-centimeter-) diameter opening for the crew to crawl through. The crew then would have parachuted to safety after clearing SpaceShipOne.

The focus of the test flight program now began to shift to prepare for the upcoming rocket-powered flights. Up to this point, SpaceShipOne was flown light, but for rocket-powered flight, it would have to maneuver with a fully fueled rocket engine. SpaceShipOne was loaded so the center of gravity (CG), or the single balance point of SpaceShipOne s mass, moved to the aft to simulate these conditions.

When Melvill tested the stall characteristics for the aft-loaded SpaceShipOne, the nose swung upward uncontrollably before the wings reached the angle of attack at which they were expected to stall. SpaceShipOne entered into a spin while Melvill fought to regain control. Figure 7.7 shows SpaceShipOne as Melvill recovered from the tail stall.

“We had a pretty significant departure from controlled flight at high angle of attack, aft CG, due to a tail stall. That really was a big surprise,” Doug Shane said.

Г

Flight Test Log Excerpt for 6G

Date: 23 September 2003

Flight Number Pilot/Flight Engineer

SpaceShipOne 6G Mike Melvill

White Knight 37L Pete Siebold/Matt Stinemetze

and Jeff Johnson

Objective: Third glide flight of SpaceShipOne. Aft CG flying qualities and performance evaluation of the spaceship in both the glide and reentry or "feather" mode. Glide envelope expansion to 95 percent airspeed, 100 percent alpha [angle of attack] and beta [sideslip angle], and 70 percent load factor. More aggressive post-stall maneuvering and spin control as a glider and while feathered. Nitrous temperature control during climb to altitude and performance of upgraded landing gear extension mechanism and space-worthy gear doors.

(source: Mojave Aerospace Ventures LLC, provided courtesy of Scaled Composites)

4___________________ J

Г ‘

Fig. 7.6. After quickly correcting the avionics malfunction, SpaceShipOne and White Knight returned to the air several hours after the aborted fourth test flight.

During this flight test, SpaceShipOne extended its feather for the first time. It performed superbly. Mojave Aerospace Ventures LLC, photograph by David M. Moore

v____ J

Г

Fig. 7.7. The sixth glide flight, on September 23, 2003, focused on the handling qualities when SpaceShipOne was loaded in the back, where the heavy rocket engine would eventually be. SpaceShipOne stalled unexpectedly, and the photograph shows the craft right after recovery.

Mojave Aerospace Ventures LLC, video capture provided courtesy of Discovery Channel and Vulcan Productions, Inc.

ч___________________________________________________________________________________ У

The feather wasn’t raised during the test flight, but during the climb to release altitude, the pressure test of the oxidizer tank revealed a variation of less than 6 psi. This meant that the temperature of the nitrous oxide inside could be controlled very well by exhaust air ducted in from White Knight.

Scaled Composites needed wind-tunnel data to evaluate the problem with the tail booms. “Except we didn’t have a wind tunnel, but we did have a pickup truck. And we had our aero guy, Jim,” Shane said.

Using a converted pickup truck fitted up with instrumentation, called the Land Shark, engineers aerodynamically tested mockups of the tail boom. With clearance from Mojave Airport, the Land Shark zoomed up and down a runway to collect data.

“We finally ended up doing a fence and a span increase on both the stabilizer and the elevon and resolved the problem,” Shane said.

A triangular strake was also added to each tail boom, right in front of each horizontal stabilizer. SpaceShipOne was ready to go back to flight testing.

r—————————————– Л

Flight Test Log Excerpt for 7G

Date: 17 October 2003

Flight Number Pilot/Flight Engineer

SpaceShipOne 7G Mike Melvill

White Knight 38L Pete Siebold/Cory Bird

and David Moore

Objective: Fourth glide flight of SpaceShipOne. Primary purpose was to examine the effects of horizontal tail modifications at both forward and mid-range CG locations (obtained by dumping water from an aft ballast tank between test points). The tail modifications included a fixed strake bonded to the tail boom in front of the stabilator and a span-wise flow fence mounted on the leading edge of each stab at mid-span. Other test objectives included a functional check of the rocket motor controller, ARM,

FIRE, and safing switches as well as the oxidizer dump valve. Additional planned maneuvers included full rudder pedal sideslips and more aggressive nose pointing while in the feathered configuration.

(source: Mojave Aerospace Ventures LLC, provided courtesy of Scaled Composites)

V___________________ J

As the involvement and development of the commercial space indus­try continues to move forward and expand, many new ideas and designs are being introduced to the public. Even NASA has gotten into the spirit of public and commercial spaceflight. In 2005, the agency announced the first two cash prizes in a series called Centennial Challenges: the space tether and beam-power challenges,
which are both the components needed to build an elevator to space. In 2006, the less obscure lunar lander challenge was added, and other challenges soon followed.

NASA has partnered with the X Prize Foundation to run some of the Centennial Challenges during the annual X Prize Cup. Figure 10.3 shows the lunar lander of John Carmack’s Armadillo Aerospace, a team that had competed for the Ansari X Prize, whose amazing demonstration missed winning the challenge in 2006 by the slimmest of margins.

The X Prize Cups are a cross between air shows and space expos, where companies show off and, in some cases, even demonstrate many of the latest and greatest ideas. One of the big attractions is the Rocket Racing League, which is still in development.

Sean D. Tucker, a champion aerobatic pilot who is looking forward to flying in the league, said, “It is going to be very similar to a Red Bull course except longer and higher, and I think there are going to be milestones in the sky and altitudes you have to hit in the sky as well and then come back down. I think it is going to be a truly three-dimensional course, They’re working with the technology now to have heads-up displays where you can see the virtual course in the air.” Figure 10.4 shows a prototype rocket racer.

As recently as 2001, Dennis Tito became the first paying space tourist, flying to the International Space Station aboard a Russian Soyuz. Since then, four others have made this $20 million, or more, journey. In 2006, Anousheh Ansari was doing research based upon
this type of spaceflight for a venture she was involved with. She said, “I was looking into it to find out what type of training was really required if we were to commercialize orbital flights. Do people real­ly need six months of training and all these things? The best way to find out was to go through the program. I started training as a back­up. But three weeks before the flight the primary crewmember got ill. He failed one of his medical tests. And that’s when they said, ‘Well, if you want to go, you can go. You can take that seat now.’ And I just couldn’t say no to that.”

Figure 10.5 shows Ansari floating about in the International Space Station. She skipped over suborbital entirely and went straight to orbital. With Ansari’s support, she helped open the door to space a

Ґ л

Fig. 10.5. Space tourism began in 2001 when Dennis Tito rocketed to the International Space Station in a Russian Soyuz. In 2006, Anousheh Ansari joined the handful of people who have made this same journey. At between $20 million and $40 million, this ticket is out of reach from most people.

But a growing number of entrepreneurs are recognizing that there is not just a desire for space but a demand for space. Prodea Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Used under permission of Prodea Systems, Inc.

v____________________________________________________________________________________________ )

little wider for the rest of the public. This unexpected opportunity for her was well deserved.

One of the bigger prizes still out there is the $50 million America’s Space Prize announced in 2004 by Bigelow Aerospace, which is an orbital version of the Ansari X Prize. In 2007, the X Prize Foundation raised the ante, not in terms of money but in terms of miles. Partnering with Google, the $30 million Google Lunar X Prize will have teams compete to land on the Moon. This is a
one-way ride, though. No self-replicating, carbon-based life forms are required for the trek. But before orbital or lunar spaceflights get going for the public, there is still another race on for suborbital flights. About a dozen companies are currently developing suborbital spacecraft, several of which were Ansari X Prize competitors, like Starchaser and the da Vinci Project. The truth is, there is an enormous amount of activity behind the scenes as well as on center stage.

Because SpaceShipOne slowed down so quickly, it did not experience extreme temperatures very long. Therefore, thermal loads were much smaller than those faced by the Space Shuttle. SpaceShipOne required only a relatively simple thermal protection system (TPS). Its TPS design consisted of two main parts.

The first part was built in during the manufacture of the composites. When the composite skins for the areas that would experience high temperatures during reentry were constructed, instead of

epoxy, a phenolic resin was used with the carbon fiber. The temperature tolerance for these composites increased by 50 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit.

About 14 pounds (6.4 kilograms) of an approximately 0.035-inch – (0.09-centimeter-) thick ablative coating developed by Scaled Composites was added to 25 percent of the surface of SpaceShipOne as the second part of the TPS. Ablative coatings made of reinforced plastic have been around since the early space program. The ablative process reduces the temperature of a spacecraft’s surface that faces the airstream on reentry by absorbing some of the heat that is generated. The heat absorbed causes the ablative coating to burn free of the spacecraft, so, in effect, the coating carries away a portion of the heat when it flies off the spacecraft.

When the ablative coating burns, it undergoes a chemical reaction. The heat provides the energy needed for this chemical reaction to

г ^

Fig. 4.20. Wax stripes were added to the various surfaces exposed to heating during reentry. These surfaces already had a red-colored coating that was part of the thermal protection system (TPS). Each colored wax stripe on the right wingtip, as shown here, melted at a different temperature. By studying the remaining wax after a flight, engineers could determine a heating profile. Mojave Aerospace Ventures LLC, photograph by David M. Moore

V_____________________________________ J

occur. Therefore, the heat absorbed during the ablation process is heat that is no longer available to heat up SpaceShipOne. The abla­tive coating is then reapplied for the next spaceflight. Figure 4.20 shows the temperature effects on a wingtip and its colored wax test stripes.

Even in the worst-case scenario where the TPS was completely gone, the fuselage could have withstood the damage and returned the crew unharmed. Because of the short duration and relatively low altitude of the spaceflight, SpaceShipOne was not equipped with radiation shielding.

“A stall is when the air flowing over the wing no longer stays attached to the surface. It’s not developing any lift anymore. And as soon as it stalls, you are not an airplane anymore. You are just a 2,000-pound [910-kilogram] lump falling out of the sky,” Mike Melvill defined in Black Sky, the Discovery Channel documentary about SpaceShipOne.

For this flight, the only modifications to each tail boom were the addi­tions of the strake and flow fence. The enlargement of the horizontal stabilizers would wait until the next test flight. However, the new mod­ifications did improve the aerodynamics, and the uncommanded pitch-up of the nose at aft CG was eliminated. Melvill was able to then turn his attention to the feather and rocket-engine controls. Figure 7.8 shows the feather deployed as he continued to push maneuverability limitations.

After the functionality of the rocket-engine instruments and controls checked out, Melvill was ready to land. Figure 7.9 shows a view from the camera mounted in his helmet as SpaceShipOne neared the runway. The glide flight lasted 17 minutes and 49 seconds.

Ґ ^

Fig. 7.8. Several modifications were put in place to address the stall problem encountered in the previous flight, including the addition of a triangular strake mounted in front of each horizontal stabilizer and a flow fence attached midspan on each horizontal stabilizer. Mojave Aerospace Ventures LLC, video capture provided courtesy of Discovery Channel and Vulcan Productions, Inc.

V___________________ J

г ^ ^

Fig. 7.9. Flying the first six piloted flights, two captive carries, and four glide flights, Mike Melvill continued to expand the flight envelope. Step by step, he pushed SpaceShipOne to perform a little harder so the engineers could get a more complete picture of its flying qualities. Mojave Aerospace Ventures LLC, video capture provided courtesy of Discovery Channel and Vulcan Productions, Inc.

V____________________________________________________________ )

Based on the design and trajectory of SpaceShipOne, now a proven space­ship, SpaceShipTwo takes advantage of the lessons learned while flying SpaceShipOne. Rutan stated his commitment to making it one hundred times safer than anything that has previously carried people to space.

On September 27, 2004, just days before the first Ansari X Prize flight attempt, entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson, founder ofVirgin Records and Virgin Atlantic, entered into an agreement with Paul Allen and Burt Rutan to build a fleet of SpaceShipTwos to be launched from carrier aircraft similar to White Knight. SpaceShipTwo is about three times the size of SpaceShipOne, and its carrier is as large as an airliner. Figure 10.6 shows a conceptual drawing of SpaceShipTwo and its carrier aircraft, and figure 10.7 shows a size comparison that includes SpaceShipOne and SpaceShipTwo.

Branson formed the spaceline Virgin Galactic, in which he desig­nated the first SpaceShipTwo the Virgin Spaceship (VSS) Enterprise after Star Trek’s famed spaceship, and the carrier aircraft Eva after his mum. Virgin Galactic will pay $250 million for a fleet containing five

SpaceShipTwos and two White Knight Twos. True to Rutan fashion, the program to develop these aircraft, called Tier lb, is top secret.

The trajectory is a basic up and down, like SpaceShipOne s, but initial launches will likely take place where the carrier aircraft flies from Mojave out over the Pacific Ocean, as shown in figure 10.8. SpaceShipTwo then reenters the atmosphere after having reached a reported apogee of 84—87 miles (135—140 kilometers), whereas during SpaceShipOne’s final flight it hit 69.6 miles (112 kilometers), well above the Ansari X Prize limit of 62.1 miles (100 kilometers). Having a better glide range than its predecessor, SpaceShipTwo will take a scenic glide back to Mojave.

SpaceShipTwo will have two pilots and room for six passengers. The price for the 2.5-hour trip will be about $200,000 to start with, which includes an orientation flight where the passengers on deck get to watch an actual flight of SpaceShipTwo from the carrier aircraft. That hefty price tag will come down once the economy of scale and competition begin to take hold. Virgin Galactic released mockups of the interior in September 2006. As shown in figure 10.9, passengers

ґ

Fig. 10.6. An early conceptual design of SpaceShipTwo and White Knight Two shows the similarities to their predecessors. However, SpaceShipTwo will be three times the size of SpaceShipOne and has a cabin the size of a Gulfstream 4 corporate jet while White Knight Two will be larger than a Boeing 757. Virgin Galactic’s initial fleet will include five SpaceShipTwos and two White Knight Twos. Courtesy ofVirgin Galactic

ґ

Fig. 10.8. This conceptual diagram shows an early representation of SpaceShipTwo’s flight profile based on the flight profile of SpaceShipOne. SpaceShipTwo will be three times as large as its predecessor but will share many of the same design elements. Courtesy of Virgin Galactic

к______________________________________________________________________________________

will be able to release their seatbelts and float around inside the cabin during a weightlessness period of about four minutes.

The conceptual drawings and early flight specifications available to the public will undoubtedly differ a bit from the end results. The launch altitude of 60,000 feet (18,290 meters) that has been floating
around, for example, is a number that will likely come down. Just because the vehicles are larger and apogee is planned to be higher doesn’t necessarily mean everything else scales up, too. After all, SpaceShipOne was planned to launch at 50,000 feet (15,240 meters), dropped to 48,000 feet (14,630 meters), and then finally ended up

ґ ; л

Fig. 10.9. A mockup of SpaceShipTwo’s cabin interior was revealed in 2006. Six passengers will ride to space, and when they get there, they will be able to unbuckle their seatbelts and float around the cabin to enjoy the weightlessness and the view. Courtesy of Virgin Galactic

V__________________________________________ J

at 47,000 feet (14,330 meters). To turn the corner with that big rocket engine blaring, SpaceShipTwo still needs air for the control surfaces to bite into, right? Will SpaceShipTwo even be mounted underneath the carrier aircraft, or will it ride on top like the Space Shuttle on a 747? Why risk your spaceship if your carrier aircraft has a landing gear failure? Why waste energy pulling downward away from the carrier aircraft during separation? However, a carrier aircraft could fly to a higher altitude in order to reduce the fuel requirements of a top-launching spacecraft if the carrier aircraft was able to pitch up and begin turning the corner for the spacecraft prior to separation.

SpaceShipTwo is set to fly passengers in the 2008—2009 time – frame. But before flight testing begins, SpaceShipTwo will be unveiled. SpaceShipThree will eventually follow. It will be the first of Rutan’s Tier Two vehicles, designed for Earth orbit. SpaceShipThree certainly has a model number by now.

Clean, dry air was used in the pneumatics to pressurize the actuators. The cabin was also pressurized with air. Each system had its own high-pressure bottle and a backup bottle. The feather, environmental control system (ECS), and reaction control system (RCS) each had a bottle A and bottle B. The initial pressure of these six bottles was 6,000 pounds per square inch (psi). Other systems also required pressurized air, but they fed off of these bottles. Electricity was provided by an array of lithium batteries.

SpaceShipOne was the first manned spacecraft to use a hybrid rocket engine, which is a cross between a liquid-fueled rocket engine and a solid – fueled rocket engine. Designed by Scaled Composites, it ran by using a combination of synthetic rubber and nitrous oxide. Mojave Aerospace Ventures LLC, photograph by David M. Moore

Flying at 115 knots and 47,300 feet (14,420 meters), Pete Siebold detached from White Knight. Shown at the controls of SpaceShipOne in figure 7.10, Siebold became the second test pilot to fly SpaceShipOne. Mike Melvill had flown all the previous manned test flights.

Although SpaceShipOne’s performance was really starting to become dialed in, there was no shortage of work to do. Untested controls and the modified horizontal stabilizers needed evaluation— all this while Siebold learned how SpaceShipOne flew outside of the realm of the simulator. Figure 7.11 shows small strings attached to the horizontal stabilizer. With one free end, these strings helped the engineers identify how the air flowed over its surfaces.

Before Siebold completed the glide flight, he had to work on a new landing procedure that he and Binnie had been devising in order to improve reliability. “We had both very short, almost didn’t make it to the runway, and very long, almost off the end of the runway, landing excursions,” Doug Shane said.

Although SpaceShipOne glided okay, it didn’t have anywhere near the performance or control of a sailplane effortlessly gliding upward on the tops of thermals. The procedure involved overflying the run­way and hitting altitude waypoints while being able to accommodate coming into the approach too high or too low. After 19 minutes and 55 seconds in the air, SpaceShipOne landed at the intended aim-point.

Flight Test Log Excerpt for 8G

Date: 14 November 2003

SpaceShipOne White Knight

Objective: The fifth glide flight of SpaceShipOne. New pilot checkout flight. Stability and control testing with the new extended horizontal tails. Tests included stall performance at aft limit CG and evaluation of the increased pitch and roll control authority. Other objectives included additional testing of the motor controller (MCS) and handling qualities in feathered flight.

(source: Mojave Aerospace Ventures LLC, provided courtesy of Scaled Composites)

r >

Fig. 7.11. During Pete Siebold’s first flight, he had to evaluate additional modifications to the horizontal

stabilizers put in place to rectify handling issues revealed two flights earlier. Small strings attached to the newly enlarged horizontal stabilizers were used to help analyze the air flow. Mojave Aerospace Ventures LLC, video capture provided courtesy of Discovery Channel and Vulcan Productions, Inc.

г-

Fig. 7.12. Mike Melvill returned to the pilot’s seat for the ninth flight, which was the sixth glide flight of SpaceShipOne. In the photograph, Melvill pulls a handle to his left to deploy the feather for additional evaluation. Mojave Aerospace Ventures LLC, video capture provided courtesy of Discovery Channel and Vulcan Productions, Inc.

V______________________________________________________ ( ; ^

Fig. 7.13. An abort while fully fueled was a very big concern for Scaled Composites because

of the heavy weight for landing. Even when testing SpaceShipOne’s performance with ballast to more closely match the weight of a fully fueled rocket engine, it was necessary to dump the ballast prior to landing. Mojave Aerospace Ventures LLC, video capture provided courtesy of Discovery Channel and Vulcan Productions, Inc.

V_________________________________________________ J f

Fig. 7.14. Among the biggest surprises to Scaled Composites was the difficultly of landing SpaceShipOne without undershooting or overshooting the runway. The test pilot had to manage the airspeed and altitude very carefully on approach to the runway for landing. Mojave Aerospace Ventures LLC, video capture provided courtesy of Discovery Channel and Vulcan Productions, Inc.

Ґ

Flight Test Log Excerpt for 9G

Date: 19 November 2003

Flight Number Pilot/Flight Engineer

SpaceShipOne 9G Mike Melvill

White Knight 41L Brian Binnie/Cory Bird

Objective: The sixth glide flight of SpaceShipOne. Test pilot Mike Melvill’s first flight with the enlarged tails. Emergency aft CG handling qualities eval and simulated landing exercise with the new tail configuration. Airspeed and g envelope expansion and dynamic feather evaluation.

Scaled Composites received about $25 million from Paul Allen for twenty tasks that Burt Rutan had specifically outlined, which covered
building SpaceShipOne all the way through competing with it. “Task 21 was that we would fly SpaceShipOne every Tuesday for five months, reasoning that if we did that you could then make with confidence a commercial business plan,” Rutan said.

But Task 21 wasn’t funded. Rutan figured that once he got the data on the real costs of flying SpaceShipOne, he would then approach Allen. “That would be the opportunity for Paul and me and both of our friends to be astronauts,” Rutan explained. “If you just count only the passengers, you’ve got forty-four people. So, maybe twenty of my friends could be astronauts and twenty of his friends could be astro­nauts. That would be kind of cool. That was the plan. But something got in the way of the plan. I underestimated the impact of SpaceShipOne on the media and the public, and I underestimated its effect on historians.”

Shortly after Melvill flew SpaceShipOne into space the first time, Rutan received a letter from Valerie Neal, the curator of post-Apollo human spaceflight for the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum. “It was clear to all of us right away once Mike Melvill had made the first flight in June that this was a remarkable achievement, whether or not it won the Ansar і X Prize,” Neal said.

“We think that SpaceShipOne either itself may prove to be the pivotal craft that leads to a commercial spaceflight space-tourism industry, or it’s the leading edge of that. You know there are enough developments going on right now. It looks as if this is the cusp of a new revolution in spaceflight.”

So, the National Air and Space Museum expressed its interest in acquiring SpaceShipOne to join it with other remarkable vehicles in the Milestones of Flight gallery, which includes the original 1903 Wright Flyer, Spirit of St. Louis, and the Bell X-l that broke the sound barrier, Glamorous Glennis. But the National Air and

Ґ л

Fig. 10.11. When SpaceShipOne made it first spaceflight on June 21,2004, the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution immediately recognized the significance of the event. By becoming the first non­governmental, privately funded vehicle to reach space, SpaceShipOne earned a place in the Milestones of Flight gallery with the Spirit of St. Louis, Bell X-1, 1903 Wright Flyer, and Apollo 11 command module Columbia.

Courtesy of Virgin Galactic

Ґ Л

Fig. 10.10. On June 27, 2005, Burt and Tonya Rutan, in SpaceShipOne, and Mike and Sally Melvill, in White Knight, landed at Oshkosh, Wisconsin, for the Experimental Aircraft Association’s (EAA) 2005 AirVenture. An active EAA member, Burt Rutan introduced the VariViggen, the first aircraft he designed and built, at the 1972 AirVenture. Now he and Melvill, also a longtime EAA member, gave a special showing of SpaceShipOne and White Knight to many of their closest supporters. Tyson V. Rininger

V______________________________ J

Space Museum didn’t realize the extent to which Allen was involved. Rutan said that he would have to bring Allen into the dialog as well.

“So,” Neal recalled, “it was right at the end of November or early December when Allen and Rutan both said, ‘Yeah, we’re really interested

in donating this to the museum. Come on out and let’s talk and let’s have a look at it together.’”

Rutan had to face a tough decision. He explained, “When we got that request, Paul Allen called and said, ‘Listen, I don’t want you to fly it anymore. Just get the X Prize. Two more flights and

Ґ

Fig. 10.12. Carrying a small piece of SpaceShipOne, the space probe New Horizons, launched in 2006, races to the edge of the Solar System. The first mission ever to the dwarf planet Pluto, it will arrive in 2015. NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory-Southwest Research Institute

V______________________________________________________________________________

that’s it.’ We had three or four motors, so we could have easily flown one more flight. My first thought was to fight with him. I said, ‘No, you’ve got to prove a business plan. If this is going to go on to the next step, you got to do this.’ And then I realized that he really was right.”

Preserving the legacy was more important.

Valerie Neal recalled, “What I had asked Rutan to do before he delivered it to us was to return it to its June configuration. After that June flight, before the X Prize flights, quite a number of decals were added to it, and the Virgin Galactic logo was added to it. And the appearance was considerably different.”

Even the dent in the engine fairing from that flight was put back. That’s how seriously Scaled Composites took her request. So, right after SpaceShipOne was hung in the museum, the damage drew some quick notice. “The director of the museum came in and said, ‘I hope we didn’t do that last night.’ And I said, ‘No, no, it came that way,’” Neal said.

However, even before being transferred to the museum, Rutan wanted to fly White Knight and SpaceShipOne to Oshkosh. He wanted to do something special for the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA), which had stood by him from the time of his very first aircraft. With Mike Melvill behind the stick of White Knight and SpaceShipOne attached below, he flew from Mojave but stopped right before reaching the air show in Madison, Wisconsin, to pick up some very important passengers. Burt Rutan and his wife, Tonya, climbed into SpaceShipOne, while Sally Melvill joined her husband in White Knight.

They touched down at Oshkosh on June 27, 2005. “It was very emotional because it was like a homecoming for the triumphant sol­dier,” said Tom Poberezny, president of EAA. “And here was Burt coming home to an audience that truly appreciated what he did because they’ve grown up with him. They’ve appreciated every design innovation he has ever done, his successes, his failures, his trials, his tribulations.”

Figure 10.10 shows the EAA crowd gathered around SpaceShipOne andWhite Knight.

When the air show ended, Melvill took off with a small crew to head for Dulles Airport in Washington, D. C., after first stopping over in Dayton, Ohio, the hometown of the Wright brothers. But the adventure was far from over. White Knight doesn’t have very long legs. Its range is only about 500 miles (800 kilometers). When it reached

Dulles Airport, someone must have noticed White Knight carrying a missile-like object. “So, they turned us around and drove us away right in the middle of the approach,” Mike Melvill said.

“I said, ‘If you turn us around, we will run out of gas.’ And the air – traffic controller said, ‘I don’t care. Make a one-eighty and get out of here. I don’t want to see you again.’ And I said, ‘You need to get your supervisor because this has all been pre-briefed.’ Pretty soon the airline guys on the same frequency were saying, ‘Hey, come on. This is the guy delivering SpaceShipOne to the National Air and Space Museum.’”

Even after arrangements had been made with the airport and with the officials from the National Air and Space Museum on the ground, Melvill was denied. But he could always be counted on when the situation did not go exactly as planned. With almost no gas, he was able to land on a runway that wasn’t being used by the airlines. After detaching SpaceShipOne from White Knight and spending about an hour on the ground, Melvill lifted off in White Knight. The mothership had left its baby for good. Figure 10.11 shows SpaceShipOne in the Milestones of Flight gallery after the donation ceremony on October 5, 2005, hanging next to Spirit of St. Louis and Glamorous Glennis.

Although SpaceShipOne’s mission was suborbital spaceflight, it was actually able to completely break away from Earth’s gravitational pull. In 2007, a small piece of SpaceShipOne, aboard the space probe New Horizons, zipped by Jupiter on its way to a rendezvous with Pluto and its moon Charon. It will then continue on further to the edge of the Solar System into the mysterious Kuiper Belt, a region of space responsible for the demotion of Pluto from a planet to a dwarf plan­et after the discovery of a tenth planet. Launched in 2006, this is the first mission aimed at exploring these celestial objects. Figure 10.10 shows a conceptual drawing of the space probe on its journey.

In June of 2015, New Horizons and the SpaceShipOne fragment will have completed the interplanetary cruise phase on the way to Pluto. Earth will be 3.06 billion miles (4.92 billion kilometers) away when the closest approach occurs. Eleven years earlier, to the month, SpaceShipOne had first entered space, giving real hope to those with dreams of floating free in space.

A character in Clarke’s 2010: Odyssey Two, in summarizing what he expected from an upcoming space trip, simply stated, “Something wonderful.” By the time New Horizons actually reaches Pluto, that phrase will be invoked many times thanks to the accomplishments of commercial space travel that are to come.

A: SpaceShipOne Flight Data

Date Intended Mission SpaceShipOne Flight Pilot/ Flight Flight No.<2) Pilot Flight Time {minutes} Release Altitude (feet (meters)} Release Speed {knots} Top Speed {Mach}<b> Rocket Burn {seconds} Shutdown Altitude {feet (meters)} Apogee {feet (meters)} Maximum g-Force {G}<b> No.(2> Flight Engineer 1 ime {hours} 5/20/03 Captive Carry 01C 24C Pete Siebold/ Brian Binnie 1.8 7/29/03 Captive Carry 02C Mike Melvill 29C Brian Binnie/ Cory Bird 2.1 8/7/03 Captive Carry 03G Mike Melvill 19.00 47,000 (14,330) 105 30L Brian Binnie/ Cory Bird 1.1 8/27/03 Glided) 04GC Mike Melvill 31LC Brian Binnie/ Cory Bird 1.1 8/27/03 Glide 05G Mike Melvill 10.50 48,200 (14,690) 105 32L Brian Binnie/ Cory Bird 1.1 9/23/03 Glide 06G Mike Melvill 12.25 46,800 (14,270) 115 37L Pete Siebold/ Matt Stinemetze and Jeff Johnson 1.5 10/17/03 Glide 07G Mike Melvill 17.82 46,200 (14,080) 115 38L Pete Siebold/ Cory Bird and David Moore 1.1 11/14/03 Glide 08G Pete Siebold 19.92 47,300 (14,420) 115 40L Brian Binnie/ Matt Stinemetze 1.4 11/19/03 Glide 09G Mike Melvill 12.42 48,300 (14,720) 115 41L Brian Binnie/ Cory Bird 2.1 12/4/03 Glide 10G Brian Binnie 13.23 48,400 (14,750) 115 42L Pete Siebold/ Matt Stinemetze 1.3 12/17/03 Powered 11P Brian Binnie 18.17 47,900 (14,600) 112 1.2 15 (d) 67,800 (20,670) 3+ 43L Pete Siebold/ Cory Bird 1.2 3/11/04 Glide 12G Pete Siebold 18.50 48,500 (14,780) 125 49L Brian Binnie/ Matt Stinemetze 1.3 4/8/04 Powered 13P Pete Siebold 16.45 45,600 (13,900) 125 1.6 40 (d) 105,000 (32,000) (d) 53L Brian Binnie/ Matt Stinemetze 1.3 5/13/04 Powered 14P Mike Melvill 20.73 46,000 (14,020) 120 2.5 55 150,000 (45,720) 211,400 (64,430) 3.5 56L Brian Binnie/ Matt Stinemetze 1.5 6/21/04 Powered 15P Mike Melvill 24.08 47,000 (14,330) (d) 2.9 76 180,000 (54,860) 328,491 (100,124) 5.0 60L Brian Binnie/ Matt Stinemetze 1.6 9/29/04 Powered 16P (XI) Mike Melvill 24.00 46,500 (14,170) (d) 3.0 77 180,000 (54,860) 337,00 (102,900) 5.1 65L Brian Binnie/ Matt Stinemetze 1.6 10/4/04 Powered 17P (X2) Brian Binnie 24.00 47,000 (14,360) (d) 3.25 84(e) 213,000 (64,920) 367,500 (112,00) 5.4 66L Mike Melvill/ Matt Stinemetze 1.6 (a) C, G, L, and P denote captive carry, glide, launch, and powered, respectively, for the intended missions of SpaceShipOne and White Knight. A second letter in the flight number indicates the actual mission if different than the intended mission. (b) The highest value is given whether occurring during boost or reentry. (c) Flight aborted prior to SpaceShipOne separation from White Knight, so SpaceShipOne was not released. (d) Data not reported in Combined White Knight/SpaceShipOne Flight Tests provided by Scaled Composites. (e) The value of 84 seconds is used based upon the transcript of 17P.

В: Chase Plane Crews

pacecraft have used both solid and liquid rockets, and in some cases both, to blast out of the atmosphere, into orbit, to the Moon, and out of the Solar System. The Space Shuttle, for example, uses two solid rocket boosters (SRB) mounted to the external tank (ET) and its three liquid-fueled main engines to reach orbit.

SpaceShipOne had a much different set of challenges to face, so its rocket engine had to be equally unique. There was no off-the-shelf rocket engine that Scaled Composites could simply install. Rutan had to design the rocket engine from scratch. It would be the first that Scaled Composites would have to build. Once the design was complete, Sealed Composites enlisted four subcontractors to provide the rocket-engine components that were not built in-house.

SpaceShipOne would be the first manned spacecraft to use a hybrid rocket engine. Figure 5.1 shows an external view of SpaceShipOne’s hybrid rocket engine.

The Rocket Engine

In 1999, Scaled Composites began researching rocket-engine technology. By January of 2000, it had not only identified the type of rocket engine and selected the propellants, but it had developed a new concept for its configuration.

ґ

Fig. 5.1. A hybrid rocket engine offers advantages of both liquid-fueled and solid-fueled rocket engines. The rocket engine can be shut off at any time during the burn and can be constructed without complicated plumbing and pumps. The disadvantage, though, is that it has lower performance than the other two types. Mojave Aerospace Ventures LLC, photograph by David M. Moore ______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Rutan believed that the highest risk of the program from the technical stance was the operation of the rocket engine. Reentry was dangerous, of course, but the “carefree” approach using the feather dramatically minimized this danger.

“I ruled out solids because I couldn’t do flight tests with them,” Rutan said. “I couldn’t do flight-test envelope expansion. I couldn’t do partial burns. Also, I knew that likely during a burn, I might be accelerating into a Mach number that I’d never been to. And I may not like it. I wanted to be able at any time to shut the motor off just like that.

“I ruled out liquids because they had a large number of failure points that were difficult to improve safely by making them all redundant. If you did, you ended up with a complex system, which historically has been shown to be less safe than not having the redundancy.”

A hybrid rocket engine fit Rutan’s requirements. It was very safe and very simple and very robust. Just as the name suggests, a hybrid
rocket engine is part liquid rocket engine (like the Space Shuttle’s main engines) and part solid rocket engine (like the Space Shuttle’s solid rocket boosters). Figure 5.2 shows the basic designs of liquid, solid, and hybrid rocket engines.

Essentially, a hybrid rocket engine is a tank that contains the liquid part and a motor that contains the solid part. Upon ignition, the liquid flows into the motor and out come the flames. It can be stopped instantly, unlike a solid, and its propellants are room temper­ature as opposed to cryogenic. However, there is a tradeoff. Hybrid rocket engines are typically less efficient than liquid or solid rocket engines. This means that for equal amounts of propellant by mass, hybrids deliver less thrust. But in the case of SpaceShipOne, the lower performance was acceptable.

“Would I use a hybrid motor to go to orbit? Probably not unless we could develop one that was close to the efficiency of the liquids,” Rutan said.

Liquid Rocket Engine

Fuel Pumps Throat

Oxidizer

Solid Rocket Engine