SpaceShipONE - Going for the X-Prize

[schumanna]

I want my own space ship!  Lets all build and develop a real DGIII.  My dream!  If only.



Post Edited ( 06-05-04 14:36 )

[Krytom]

Tadaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

[McBrain]

KRYTOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
GO OUT OF MY DELTAGLIDER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

lol

[Krytom]

I couldn't be bothered to change the skin after testing it out. It was meant to be a quick screenshot, but getting my
picture in there was slightly harder than I hoped it to be.

[McBrain]

LOL

Anyways: funny picture!

[Krytom]

Hehe, I had to. I'm not trying to offend anyone or make any statements.

[McBrain]

[Krytom]

I live up to my signature. I can't have the dotted lines. The image url takes up a lot of characters.

[reekchaa]

The Official Flight Report:

Flight 60L / 15P
         
Date: 21 June 04
 Flight Time: 1.6 hour / 24 min 05sec    
White Knight Pilot: Binnie White Knight Copilot: Stinemetze
SpaceShipOne Pilot: Melvill    

Objectives:          
First commercial astronaut flight by exceeding 100 kilometers (328,000 ft)  

Results:            
Cheered down the runway by onlookers, the White Knight turbojet launch aircraft took off at 647 a.m. PST, carrying
SpaceShipOne under its fuselage to an altitude of 47,000 feet. At 750 a.m. PST, flight engineer Matt Stinemetz
released the spaceship and test pilot Mike Melville immediately fired the hybrid rocket motor. The rocket burn lasted
for 76 seconds rocketing the vehicle to more than 2.9 Mach or 2150 miles an hour. At motor burn out, SpaceShipOne
was at 180,000 feet and from there coasted the rest of the way into space reaching an apogee of 328,491 feet.
Melvill experienced weightlessness for approximately 3 ½ minutes as the vehicle slowly decelerated to apogee and
then yielding to the pull of gravity commenced its historic return to earth in the craft's unique entry or feathered
configuration. During the descent the pilot experienced forces greater than 5.0 G's as the vehicle accelerated again to
2.9 Mach. Melvill reconfigured the vehicle back to a glider at 57,000 feet and over the next 20 minutes enjoyed a
leisurely descent to a graceful landing at Mojave, the Nation's first inland Space Port.

SpaceShipOne Flight 15P Anomaly:
As mentioned in the post-flight press conference, during SpaceShipOne's historic flight to 100 kilometers on 21 June
2004 there was a flight control malfunction. Late in the boost phase, the vehicle s primary pitch trim control was lost.
Scaled views any flight control system anomaly as a serious matter, but to guard against these problems, the vehicle
has redundancy on all flight-critical systems, including pitch trim. So when the failure occurred, test pilot Mike Melvill
switched to the backup system and continued the planned mission. However, the resulting trajectory excursion had
two effects. One, the vehicle didn't climb as high as planned and two, the space ship re-entered south of the
intended recovery point. This latter effect, while undesirable, was well within the vehicle's glide capability and
SpaceShipOne had no difficulty flying back to Mojave Space Port for a normal landing.
 

[reekchaa]

And the report given by the Press...


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

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.

Melvill said he leveled out the rocketship, but then experienced trim problems during his climb outside the Earth´s
atmosphere. "As I came out of the atmosphere I no longer had any attitude control," Melvill told New Scientist
reporters. "If that had happened earlier, I would never have made it and you all would be looking sad right now."

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. The team believes this was caused by aerodynamic stresses
crumpling a composite material fairing around the engine nozzle.

"It was not a smooth flight from the standpoint of trajectory," Rutan reported at the press briefing. "This was not a
perfect flight." Rutan also 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.

SpaceShipOne was travelling "faster than an M-16 rifle bullet", Rutan said, about around 2400 km/h (1500 mph) or
mach 3  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."

[reekchaa]

Since it's now Cool to drudge-up dying threads ... Who's going to watch the X-Prize Launch Sept 29 ?

[DocHoliday]

If I'm not too busy hunting down Toutatis and assuming there will be any kind of live broadcast over here in
Europe :/

[Simonpro]

Thrust SSC broke the sound barrier in (i think) 1997. There have also been numerous other privately funded ventures
(both built from scratch and bought from others.)
Most large aircraft manufacturers test their planes (even the military ones) before delivering them, so when someone
makes their new aircraft then they fly it, and if the aircraft is supersonic then it'll go supersonic before it is ever
handed to the military, thus meaning that it broke the sound barrier as a private venture

[reekchaa]

Okay, Sure... Thrust SSC didn't get their gov.$ til' the job was done... but did they go Mach 3?  



Bring me Virgin!  I Love Virgins!

High Quality 3 minute video of flight available:  http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/video.htm

[reekchaa]

If you want to relive the experience (and can't get Black Sky on the Discovery channel)...
Scrooge McDuck has released a great new version... with all the thrill and glory
that one might come to expect from such a prestigiously named individual.



check it out here:  http://webserv.nhl.nl/~akker306/index.php

[DocHoliday]

I never tried flying it. Is there any special technique to it?

[freespace2dotcom]

DocHoliday wrote:
Is there any special technique to it?

Make sure you don't crash, and I think you'll have a favorable experience.

[DocHoliday]

If I wanted that, I'd just stay on the ground, wouldn't I?

[reekchaa]

It's a big work in progress, but McDuck made good docs in the download for the procedure.  It's important to have
pretty good speed before you release, and pull back SLOWLY so that you don't stall out, losing your speed before
you're going almost straight up (Use TRIM only).  I sure wish we could implement TURBULENCE, so we could recreate
Melvill's fun.  
Getting back to the runway can be difficult, but OH-SO FUN when you finally do it correctly with a contact drop-rate of
centimeters per second.  (inches, for freespace )

[reekchaa]

 I re-read that with a slightly different interpretation...
"It's important to have good speed before you Release... pull out SLOWLY so that you don't stall, losing your seed
before you're shooting almost straight up."

...Atom's dirty mind has infected us all!

[DocHoliday]

So I guess, I will try to install it, to see if I can get it up and once there how well I can HANDLE it Hopefully it won't
drop before I reach the goal

[McDuck]

reekchaa wrote:
I sure wish we could implement TURBULENCE, so we could recreate
Melvill's fun.  

I've implemented this in the next release, which is almost finished.
Also, there is vibration as well as the chance to get in a roll when you're
having a very low pitch during boost.
It feels quite more realistic, and it is even more challenging to fly now

regards,
mcduck

(ps, i am not logged in heren now with my account, but i'll recover the
password later, which I forgot for this forum :P )

[reekchaa]

WOW !!!    
Now THAT sounds fantastic, McDuck!  I never would have thought all that could be possible!    

[reekchaa]

New, Version 2.0 is available for download... with all the wonderfulness McDuck mentioned above.  Enjoy at:  
http://webserv.nhl.nl/~akker306/index.php

[reekchaa]

The last 73 juicy pictures available from SS1's X-Prize winning flight are available from Scaled at:
http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/gallery/X-Prize_2?page=8