Private Spaceship Encounters Glitches In Record-Setting Flight

space.com ^ | 6/21/04 | Leonard David

[KevinDavis]

MOJAVE, CALIFORNIA -- There were tense times during the sky-blistering flight of SpaceShipOne here this morning. Fighting control problems, pilot Mike Melvill wrestled with several anomalies that cut short a pre-planned altitude mark.

[KevinDavis]

Nothing ever goes smooth the first time.

[KevinDavis]

Space Ping! This is the Space Ping List! Let me know if you want on or off this list!

[Jalapeno]

add my nerdly self please.

[Wilhelm Tell]

Include me too, please.

[Old Professer]

Oh Heavens, a problem, call out the inspectors, needs more study and government assistance, risky behavior endangers us all...

[blam]

Private Spaceship Encounters Glitches In Record-Setting Flight

By Leonard David
Senior Space Writer
posted: 01:35 pm ET
21 June 2004

MOJAVE, CALIFORNIA -- There were tense times during the sky-blistering flight of SpaceShipOne here this morning. Fighting control problems, pilot Mike Melvill wrestled with several anomalies that cut short a pre-planned altitude mark.

However, the first non-governmental rocket ship did succeed in flying to the edge of space, earning the craft’s pilot, Mike Melvill, the first set of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)-issued commercial astronaut wings.

At a post-landing press briefing, the 63-year old Melvill described a series of technical snags that haunted his record-setting flight. Right after motor ignition, the pilot said the craft rolled 90 degrees to the left, then 90 degrees to the right. "It has never ever done that before," he explained.

Technical snags

Melvill said he leveled out the rocketship, but then experienced trim problems during his climb outside the Earth’s atmosphere -- an issue that he dealt with as he made his way to a desert runway landing.

During SpaceShipOne’s climb, Melvill said he also heard a surprising bang, coming from the engine area where a fairing holding the craft’s nozzle buckled.

While an altitude of 360,000 feet was targeted, the rocket ship fell short of that mark, attaining 328,491 feet, reported Burt Rutan, head of the Scaled Composites team that designed and built the vehicle.

"It was not a smooth flight from the standpoint of trajectory," Rutan reported at the press briefing. "This was not a perfect flight," he said, although the overall performance of the rocketship was right on the money.

Rutan said the anomaly Melvill experienced was "the most serious flight safety systems problem that we’ve had in the entire program."

Back up hardware on SpaceShipOne worked and the craft made a beautiful landing, Rutan said. "Even though we really didn’t go where we were planning to go today…makes me feel very good because I felt it’s important to put those kind of backup systems in…and they worked," he added.

"The backup saved the day," Melvill noted.

Free-floating chocolates

Rutan could not discount the possibility that another flight might be needed before committing pilot and hardware to fly back-to-back flights within a two-week period to win the $10 million Ansari X Prize.

How long the vehicle’s hybrid rocket motor operated is not clear, with data from the flight still being assessed. Whether the rocket motor was shut down by Melvill or stopped on its own is not known, Rutan said.

Melvill said his rocket flight was all very exciting. "I wasn’t scared…not afraid all the way up. But I was a little afraid on the way down."

At apogee -- the highest point of the rocket ship’s flight -- Melvill pulled out of a flight suit pocket handfuls of chocolate-coated candies. He marveled at them as they floated free in the cockpit.

Awesome view

As SpaceShipOne arched over and headed toward Earth, Melvill said he began to hear sounds. "The noises you hear are like somebody talking to you very sharply. You begin to believe, wow, should I really be doing this?"

"The sky was jet black above," Melvill said. "The Earth is so beautiful ... It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. You really do get the feeling that you’ve touched the face of God when you do something like this, believe me."

Touching down at the Mojave Airport, the SpaceShipOne made a three-point landing, on two wheels, and nose-mounted skid.

"I was so glad to get it back down and make a decent landing that didn’t break anything," Melvill said. "I had to land with what I had," he added.

Upon touchdown and climbing out of the SpaceShipOne’s cockpit, Melvill was greeted by Apollo moonwalker, Buzz Aldrin.

"It meant a lot," Melvill said. "To have him come up and shake my hand and congratulate me and tell me that I’ve joined the club…that was serious stuff."

[Publius6961]

BUMP

[BenLurkin]

At a post-landing press briefing, the 63-year old Melvill described a series of technical snags that haunted his record-setting flight. Right after motor ignition, the pilot said the craft rolled 90 degrees to the left, then 90 degrees to the right. "It has never ever done that before," he explained.

I thought the video looked as though he had control problems (Not that I'm any kind of expert)

That is kinda scary. Especially that they don;t know why.

[MeekOneGOP]

[OldFriend]

How interesting that not a single report mentioned his comment about touching the face of god.

[isthisnickcool]

Nothing ever goes smooth the first time.

Good advice. Where were you before I married my first wife?

[RightWhale]

"The noises you hear are like somebody talking to you very sharply.

That's right Melville you old goat. You should wonder what an AARP candidate is doing up out of his rocking chair.

[anymouse]

RightWhale wrote: You should wonder what an AARP candidate is doing up out of his rocking chair.

Proving you wrong.

[Taxman]

Watch your mouth, youthful one!

There are a buncha old geezer FREepers on these theads!

We may not be as good as we once were, but we are better once than we ever were!

ROFOL!

[RightWhale]

pthth --~~~~ . . .

[RightWhale]

Only my 'tude is youthful. :)

[sionnsar]

Not very often. But it went well enough. Thanks for the Space Ping!

Ad Astra Per Aspera...

[VOA]

Melvill described a series of technical snags that haunted his record-setting flight. Right after motor ignition, the pilot said the craft rolled
90 degrees to the left, then 90 degrees to the right. "It has never ever done that before," he explained.


Sounds like the demon is still out there having a good time.
...from the voice-over prologue of the film version of "The Right Stuff":


There was a demon that lived in the air.

They said whoever challenged him would die.

Their controls would freeze up, their planes would buffet wildly, and they would disintegrate.

The demon lived at mach 1 on the meter, 750 miles an hour, where the air could no longer move out of the way.

He lived behind a barrier through which they said no man could ever pass.

They called it the sound barrier.

Then they built a small plane, the X-1, to try and break the sound barrier.

Men came to the high desert of California to ride it.

They were called test pilots.

And no one knew their names.

[null and void]

Melvill pulled out of a flight suit pocket handfuls of chocolate-coated candies.

*sigh* Reporters! That would be coated-chocolate candies. Melts in your mouth, not in space...

[Boundless]

> There were tense times during the sky-blistering
> flight of SpaceShipOne here this morning.

Which is precisely why this was a routine test flight,
and not an X-prize qualifying flight. Today's flight
went into corners of the envelope that hadn't been
explored before, and hazards were indeed found to be
lurking there. These need to be addressed, and will be,
so that they don't affect the already stressful 14-day
turnaround required for the prize. Glitches were
expected.

> "... handfuls of chocolate-coated candies ..."

Amazing commercial self-censorship. They were "M&Ms"
in every other story today. And those are candy-coated
chocs, not the other way around.

I expect that in a few days we'll hear from the NYT,
complaining that Melvill failed to find any WMDs up there :-)