Winning the Ansari X-Prize

A little over three months after its record-setting flight on June 21, 2004, SpaceShipOne completed two flights into space within a five-day period, winning the Ansari X-Prize. The flights took place at the Civilian Flight Test Center in Mojave, California (the Mojave airport), as did the earlier flight.

In the intervening three months, several things took place. First, Microsoft founder and venture capitalist Paul Allen, who funded most of SpaceShipOne's development, and Scaled Composites announced the formation of a new joint company, Mojave Aerospace Ventures. Second, shortly before the first X-Prize flight, Richard Branson of Virgin Atlantic Airways announced that he had signed a 100 million dollar deal for five larger models of SpaceShipOne to equip a new company, Virgin Galactic, to enter the space tourism industry. The larger models are to be named, appropriately, SpaceShipTwo.

As with the first flight of SpaceShipOne, I was there with my friend, Joe Jefferson. Here are some pictures we took. Click any of the photos below to display the full-size photo in a separate window.

Against the backdrop of a gorgeous desert sunrise, the White Knight taxis down the runway for takeoff, with SpaceShipOne attached beneath the fuselage. Taken by Joe Jefferson.

Members of the crowd strain at the sky, looking for the contrail that will mark SpaceShipOne's leap for space.

SpaceShipOne separates from the White Knight, fires its rocket and shoots for space, leaving a long white vertical contrail in the morning sky. This contrasts with the horizontal contrail left by the departing White Knight.

A teacher stands on a stepladder and looks over the crowd, as two students walk past. The parking lot was filled with school buses; most secondary and high schools in the area came to the event. Rumor has it that Paul Allen, the major funder of the SpaceShipOne project, invited them and paid for buses.

SpaceShipOne comes in for a landing accompanied by the Scaled Beech Starship, another chase plane, and the photo plane. The photo plane took many of the cool pictures of SpaceShipOne that you can find on the Scaled Tier One/SpaceShipOne web site.

The two chase planes and the photo plane perform a virtuoso victory flyby, roaring over the runway and past the crowd at a few hundred feet.

The White Knight performs a loop over the runway in celebration of a picture perfect flight.

The Virgin Galactic logo, seen on the tail of SpaceShipOne for the first time at the X-Prize winning October 4, 2004 flight.

Scaled Composites has won the X-Prize. Fortunately, the race to space is not over and Scaled Composites is not the only private company working to put men in space. Check out the X-Prize Cup web site to find out what Peter Diamendis and the X-Prize team are up to now.

Last modified on Thursday, October 23, 2008 at 8:40 AM PDT.