And who knows where this SpaceShipOne will go: ~~~One down, one to go for private spacecraft
Pilot has a wild ride on the first leg of a stratospheric bid for the X-Prize
Sept. 29, 2004, 11:30PM
By MARK CARREAU
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle
chron.com
After SpaceShipOne and its veteran pilot survived a whirling, nail-biting ascent Wednesday, the pioneering team that pulled off the private space journey could be just days from a second trip that would guarantee a multimillion-dollar bounty.
A nervous Mojave Desert crowd and anxious national television viewers watched Mike Melvill wrestle the glistening, squid-shaped spacecraft from an unexpected twisting trajectory, then throttle to a 63.9-mile peak that pushed it comfortably beyond the international space boundary.
The safe glide back to a private airport runway north of Los Angeles 82 minutes later meant a successful repeat flight by Oct. 13 will secure the $10 million Ansari X-Prize for SpaceShipOne's billionaire financier Paul Allen, a Microsoft co-founder, and maverick designer Burt Rutan.
"I just loved every second of it. Maybe I'm crazy," said Melvill, a 63-year-old grandfather who also guided a successful test flight in June.
Team members insisted Wednesday that the mystery over SpaceShipOne's spiraling sunrise climb isn't expected to threaten plans for the next attempt, which could come as early as Monday.
Rutan is expected to make an announcement today on the next scheduled flight.
When it rolled dozens of times after rocketing from a carrier aircraft at 50,000 feet, a worried Rutan and others on the team asked Melvill to shut down the engine 11 seconds early.
He did moments later, but only after climbing two miles beyond the altitude X-Prize organizers say the winning team must reach twice in the same spacecraft within two weeks.
Radar from nearby Edwards Air Force Base confirmed the height of Wednesday's journey.
Both Melvill and Rutan took responsibility for the drama. Melvill pointed to a possible lapse in his piloting skills. Rutan blamed a previously known design feature that will be eliminated in upgrades.
The problem causes the spacecraft to roll in response to high altitude windshear, he said.
"You are extremely busy at that point," said Melvill, who relies on a stick and rudder rather than a computer-fed autopilot to control the supersonic spacecraft.
"Your feet and hands and your eyes and everything is working about as fast as you can work them. Probably I stepped on something too quickly and caused the roll," he said.
Melvill also battled vertical roll during a June 21 test flight that made SpaceShipOne the first privately financed human spaceflight.
His struggle at a low altitude threw the ship more than 20 miles off course.
Wednesday, engineers studied flight performance data in search of an explanation before scheduling an encore.
"We are analyzing whether there are any safety issues related to the fact we rolled," Rutan said.
The St. Louis-based X-Prize Foundation hailed the achievement as a step toward eventual commercial space passenger travel.
For Rutan and Allen, the flight punctuated an already pioneering week.
Monday, they signed lucrative agreements with British entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson to transform SpaceShipOne's design into the first commercial space tourism project.
"One down. One to go," said Dr. Peter Diamandis, the physician-businessman who chairs the X-Prize foundation. "We have the start of the personal space flight revolution."
Among Wednesday's spectators was NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe, who praised the X-Prize competition, which has attracted entries by two dozen teams from seven nations in its eight years.
"This is history," O'Keefe said.
For Melvill, it was also emotional. Keepsakes from crew members were loaded on the flight to give it a mandatory weight.
Melvill brought along the ashes of his mother, Irene, who died four years ago.
Said Melvill: "She flew today."
mark.carreau@chron.com |
