SpaceShipOne, a 3-passenger space plane developed by Scaled Composites, won the Ansari X Prize in 2004 for being the first privately funded vehicle to reach 100 km in altitude twice in a two-week period. It uses a carrier vessel to lift it to over 90% of the Earth’s atmosphere before a hybrid rocket motor accelerates it to reach the edge of space. It has a feathered tail and can glide back to Earth. SpaceShipTwo, a larger and more powerful spaceplane built in partnership with Virgin Galactic, will be used for space tourism starting in 2009.
SpaceShipOne is a 3-passenger space plane developed by California-based company Scaled Composites in 2003. In 2004, it achieved worldwide fame by performing the first privately funded space flights and winning the US$10 million (USD) Ansari X Prize ) for its creators. The Ansari X Prize was created to reward the first privately funded team to build a vehicle that could reach 100 km (62 mi) in altitude twice in a two-week period with the equivalent of three people on board, with no more than ten percent of the non-combustible weight of the spacecraft replaced between flights.
SpaceShipOne has made multiple suborbital spaceflights. This is a flight that reaches the altitude of the international definition for the edge of space (the Kármán line), but does not come close to achieving a stable orbit around the Earth, such as a Space Shuttle or the International Space Station. Launching a spacecraft on an orbital trajectory requires 60 times more energy than a suborbital trajectory. Launching a spacecraft from low Earth orbit to a more distant geosynchronous orbit, such as GPS satellites, requires even more energy.
Unlike conventional rockets, SpaceShipOne is lifted by a carrier vessel, WhiteKnight, approximately 14 km (8.6 mi) above the surface. Here, the spacecraft is already over 90% of the Earth’s atmosphere. A hybrid rocket motor is activated and the craft accelerates from subsonic speeds up to Mach 3, climbing another 86 km (53 mi) to reach the ‘edge of space’. The engine uses liquid oxygen as an oxidizer and synthetic rubber as fuel.
SpaceShipOne featured a “feathered” tail that spread out after the spacecraft reached its apex, allowing it to glide slowly back to Earth. Capable of flying both at the edge of space and at lower altitudes, SpaceShipOne is considered a space plane, like its more expensive cousin the Space Shuttle. Speaking of costs, SpaceShipOne only cost about $25 million USD to develop, while the Space Shuttle program cost over $180 billion USD. It’s true that the Space Shuttle has much greater capabilities, but the 1:7200 cost difference is still astonishing.
SpaceShipOne was followed by SpaceShipTwo, a more powerful and larger spaceplane built in partnership with Virgin Galactic. SpaceShipTwo will be used for space tourism starting in 2009. The suborbital flights are expected to cost around $100,000 USD per passenger. If SpaceShipTwo does well, it will be followed by SpaceShipThree, which could be the first commercial vehicle to make orbital spaceflight.
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