Private rocket plane to launch from desert
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-06-21 13:50

Media and early onlookers flocked to the California desert on Sunday to witness the historic flight of the world's first privately funded rocket plane beyond Earth's atmosphere.

 

The world's first privately funded rocket plane plans to shoot beyond the uppermost layers of Earth's atmosphere June 21, 2004. The SpaceShipOne is pictured landing at the Mojave Airport in this undated photograph. [Reuters]

SpaceShipOne, designed by legendary aerospace designer Burt Rutan and funded by billionaire Paul Allen, will be launched from a larger plane and, after igniting its burners, fly 62 miles into space and back down again, a distance that will officially make test pilot Michael Melvill an astronaut.

"We do want our children to go the planets," said Rutan, the pioneering aerospace engineer who also designed the Voyager aircraft, the first airplane to fly around the world without refueling.

The world's first privately funded rocket plane plans to shoot beyond the uppermost layers of Earth's atmosphere June 21, 2004 in a bid to demonstrate the viability of commercial space flight. [Reuters]

The white rocket plane with its striking nose -- a pointed cone covered with small portholes, was built with more than US$20 million in funding by Allen, who co-founded Microsoft Corp.

"Tomorrow we will attempt to add a new page to the aviation books," Allen told more than 300 reporters gathered for the event, "It's incredibly exciting."

If all goes well, Allen and SpaceShipOne's builders are expected to announce their next goal after SpaceShipOne's flight, the Ansari X Prize, which is offering US$10 million to the first team that sends three people, or an equivalent weight, on a manned space vehicle 60 miles above the earth and repeats the trip within two weeks.

"I am ready to go, and we are going to win the X Prize," said Melvill, 62, a professional test pilot from South Africa with U.S. citizenship.

In its last test flight in May, SpaceShipOne reached an altitude of 40 miles, or about two-thirds of its goal.

SpaceShipOne philanthropist Paul G. Allen (L) and aviation legend Burt Rutan (R) announce pilot Mike Melvill will fly SpaceShipOne, on the eve of the launch of the world's first commercial manned space vehicle from the Mojave Airport, in California, June 20, 2004. [Reuters]

Allen and Rutan's team said its members are confident of success and have invited the general public to the Mojave Airport, about 100 miles north of Los Angeles, to witness Monday's 6:30 a.m. Pacific (9:30 a.m. EDT) launch attempt.

"It should be heavy traffic," said California Highway Patrol officer Joel Martinez, "We're preparing extra personnel for getting people in safely."

The flight itself will last about 85 minutes, including the time it takes for SpaceShipOne to be carried to an altitude of 50,000 feet by a larger aircraft called the White Knight.

After burning its rocket for 80 seconds, SpaceShipOne will spend about three and a half minutes at its peak altitude, during which the test pilot will experience weightlessness and see the black expanse of outer space.

Then the pilot will tilt SpaceShipOne's delta-style wings to slow the vehicle during reentry before it glides back to the Mojave Desert and into history books.

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