"HARD LANDING - Scaled Composites' SpaceShipOne is lifted of the ground Wednesday at the Mojave Airport. The craft's left landing gear collapsed after a flight test. No one was injured, but the vehicle suffered minor damage. " ROB LAYMAN/Valley
Posted on 12/18/2003 1:32:05 PM PST by BenLurkin
On the 100th anniversary of the birth of powered aviation, the first manned supersonic flight by a privately built, nongovernment-funded aircraft heralded the start of the next era, that of commercial space travel. On the centennial of the Wright brothers' first flight near Kitty Hawk, N.C., one of the famous Rutan brothers - Burt - aimed a private-venture spacecraft in the direction of the unknown.
Operating with the same entrepreneurial spirit embodied in the Wright brothers, renowned aircraft designer Burt Rutan and his Scaled Composites company have embarked on the first nongovernmental space program with the SpaceShipOne spacecraft.
Wednesday morning, SpaceShipOne made its first rocket-powered flight in the clear skies over the Mojave Airport, the first in a series of test flights intended to result in suborbital spaceflight.
"It was awesome to watch that rocket go," Mojave Airport general manager Stuart Witt said. "It absolutely gave me chills."
While the test flight was successful, the landing resulted in minor damage to the spacecraft. The left landing gear collapsed at touchdown, causing the ship to veer off the runway into the dirt with its left wing down. No one was injured in the incident, and Scaled Composites officials reported the damage will be easily repaired.
"It just goes to show you how fragile flight test is, and (how) things can go south in a hurry," Witt said.
SpaceShipOne is designed to be air-launched from the White Knight carrier aircraft, then use a rocket engine to boost it to 100 kilometers - 62.5 miles - above the Earth. Upon completing an arc, the spacecraft is to descend to a runway landing, much like a glider.
Like any developmental program, progress toward that final goal comes in steps.
Wednesday's milestone test flight began when the White Knight carrier aircraft, piloted by Scaled test pilot Peter Siebold, hauled SpaceShipOne to 48,000 feet in restricted airspace above the Mojave Airport.
At 8:15 a.m., the spacecraft was released, and Scaled test pilot Brian Binnie commanded the craft at half the speed of sound to a stable position before firing the hybrid rocket motor and shooting steeply upward. Nine seconds later, SpaceShipOne broke the sound barrier.
The rocket motor shut down as planned after 15 seconds, with the ship climbing at a 60-degree angle and flying near 1.2 Mach (930 mph). Binnie continued climbing to 68,000 feet before the ship's momentum slowed to zero.
Reaching the top of the arc, he reconfigured the ship, lifting its twin-tail section until they were virtually perpendicular to the wings and body, the "feathered" high-drag configuration the ship uses to slow itself when returning from space. The ship pushed over the top of the arc and descended in this "feathered" flight for about a minute before Binnie returned the tail section to its former position for the 12-minute glide to a runway landing.
When touching down, the spacecraft landed heavily on the left side, collapsing the gear and sending the ship off the runway in a cloud of dust. When the ship was removed, a deep gash was evident in the soft desert where it skidded.
"He just went out here in the dirt," said Rick Aday, Mojave Airport's fire chief.
As with any experimental flight, the airport's crash and rescue teams were in place for the landing.
Because the rocket motor's propellant was spent before landing, there was no fire danger, Aday said.
"Our response teams were right on it," Witt said. "It told me we've done our preparation and our training. The value of that was recognized this morning."
Federal Aviation Administration inspectors also were present to witness the flight. They quickly concluded an investigation of the landing, labeling it an "incident," a minor designation akin to a flat tire on a car, said Lenny Schaustal, FAA principal safety inspector overseeing SpaceShipOne.
Safety standards are the prime consideration in such programs.
"It's not haphazard," he said.
With research and development programs such as SpaceShipOne, "you're actually writing the book on how it's to be done," Schaustal said. "This is the very next step for aviation. You're looking at tomorrow.
"Burt's a futurist. He sees beyond the norm."
With only one SpaceShipOne, the loss of the spacecraft would be disastrous, Rutan said recently.
"Because of that, people work very, very carefully and very completely, and do the best job they can do," he said.
Less than two hours after the landing, a crane was used to hoist the disabled spacecraft onto a trailer to transport it back to Scaled Composites' facility at the other end of the airport.
Airport officials on the ground used sensors to record the noise impact of the rocket's firing.
"I never heard a sound," Witt said.
In the 56 years since Chuck Yeager first broke the sound barrier, many supersonic aircraft have been developed for research and military use. Although developed for commercial use, the recently-retired Concorde was built by large aerospace companies, using extensive government resources, according to a Scaled Composites release.
Developed in secret for two years, SpaceShipOne and its unique carrier aircraft were unveiled to the public in April. The White Knight's first flight was in August 2002, and the first unpowered glide flight of SpaceShipOne took place a year later.
Before Wednesday's flight, the spacecraft had flown independently 10 times in unpowered glide flights.
The spacecraft's hybrid rocket motor, the first designed for manned space flight in several decades, burns a combination of rubber and nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas.
The project is Scaled Composites' entry in the X-Prize race, an international competition intended to jump-start the space tourism industry.
The competition will award $10 million to the first privately funded team to successfully build and launch a spacecraft capable of carrying three people to 100 kilometers altitude and safely return to earth, then turn around and duplicate the feat with the same ship within two weeks.
In comparison, the space shuttle reaches orbits ranging from 185 to 643 kilometers, or 115 to 400 miles. The international space station orbits at 354 kilometers, or 220 miles.
In Wednesday's flight, SpaceShipOne was in near-weightless conditions at the top of the arc. In an actual spaceflight, the ship is expected to experience weightlessness for more than three minutes.
The innovative key to SpaceShipOne's reentry is in creating huge amounts of drag early on, so it lands at roughly the same speeds as a general aviation airplane.
This is accomplished by the vertical "feathering" of the twin-tail section.
"HARD LANDING - Scaled Composites' SpaceShipOne is lifted of the ground Wednesday at the Mojave Airport. The craft's left landing gear collapsed after a flight test. No one was injured, but the vehicle suffered minor damage. " ROB LAYMAN/Valley
In comparison, the space shuttle reaches orbits ranging from 185 to 643 kilometers, or 115 to 400 miles. The international space station orbits at 354 kilometers, or 220 miles
The other difference being that the Shuttle has to achieve orbital velocity, whereas SS1 reaches terminal altitude at considerably less. Thats why there is little thermal loading when it "re-enters" the atmosphere.
Anybody with any idea what is going on would have a similar reaction. To think that ordinary men can do that.
Major differences. SpaceShipOne doesn't bounce along a string and smoke doesn't dribble out the back.
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