Flight 14P of

SpaceShipOne SpaceShipOne is an experimental air-launched rocket-powered aircraft with sub-orbital spaceflight capability at speeds of up to 3,000 ft/s (900 m/s, 3240 km/h), using a hybrid rocket motor. The design features a unique " feathering" ...

was its third powered flight, which occurred on May 13, 2004. The

pilot An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they a ...

was

Mike Melvill Michael Winston Melvill (born November 30, 1940 in Johannesburg, South Africa) is a world-record-breaking pilot and one of the test pilots for SpaceShipOne, the experimental spaceplane developed by Scaled Composites. Melvill piloted SpaceShip ...

Details

SpaceShipOne was released from

White Knight A white knight is a mythological figure and literary stock character. They are portrayed alongside a black knight as diametric opposites. A white knight usually represents a heroic warrior fighting against evil, with the role in medieval literat ...

at an altitude of and a speed of 120

knot A knot is an intentional complication in Rope, cordage which may be practical or decorative, or both. Practical knots are classified by function, including List of hitch knots, hitches, List of bend knots, bends, List of loop knots, loop knots, ...

s (62 m/s). After ten seconds the rocket was lit, for a 55 second burn. At burn-out the altitude was and the

Mach number Mach number (M or Ma) (; ) is a dimensionless quantity in fluid dynamics representing the ratio of flow velocity past a boundary to the local speed of sound. It is named after the Moravian physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach. : \mathrm = \ ...

was 2.5. The craft then coasted to an

apogee An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. For example, the apsides of the Earth are called the aphelion and perihelion. General description There are two apsides in any el ...

altitude of . At one point during the flight, the

avionics Avionics (a blend of ''aviation'' and ''electronics'') are the electronic systems used on aircraft. Avionic systems include communications, navigation, the display and management of multiple systems, and the hundreds of systems that are fitt ...

computer froze up and had to be rebooted. Melvill flew the aircraft manually until the computer became operable again. During reentry, the craft attained Mach 1.9 and deceleration of 3.5 ''g'' (34 m/s²). The craft switched to glider configuration at 55,000 feet (17.4 km). The craft returned to the

spaceport A spaceport or cosmodrome is a site for launching or receiving spacecraft, by analogy to a seaport for ships or an airport for aircraft. The word ''spaceport'', and even more so ''cosmodrome'', has traditionally been used for sites capable ...

and landed safely.

External links

SpaceShipOne video footage
(RealVideo) {{Scaled Composites SpaceShipOne Scaled Composites Tier One program 2004 in spaceflight