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Spinning Space Mike: "I fumbled with the rudder. It happens at my age!"

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XPrize

Oct 1, 2004 14: 17 EST
Spectators lining the runway cheered and shouted, "Go! Go! Go!" Then it went silent. "This was not planned for" mumbled Burt Rutan as he watched SpaceShipOne go in a roll. For some sixty seconds, all eyes were glued to the sky: 10-20-30-40 spins - inside the space craft Mike, the pilot, was in trouble: "I got a surprise. The ship really spun up."

Possibly triggered by his inadvert operation of SpaceShipOne's rudder, the 63 years old pilot quickly corrected the spin using the space plane's reaction-control system, or thrusters. He was directed to shut down his engines a few seconds earlier than planned, but only after the flight had clinched the 100-kilometer target. Yet the engine burn out lasted only 60 seconds, instead of the 89 seconds planned for to reach the space mark.

As the roll came under control, the ship continued to climb. At 11.13 EST, around 4 minutes after the launch at 11.09 AM EST, SpaceShipOne reached 337,000 feet, well past the required prize altitude of 100 kilometers. Upon its re-entry into the atmosphere several minutes later, a deep sonic boom rolled across the desert floor.

"I think it looks good for the crowd to do a roll at the top of the climb," said Mike, 63, when he climbed out. "If you have a high roll rate and you didn't plan to do it, that's normally a big deal," Rutan said. "If this happened on the shuttle it would be an accident. We would be out there looking for small pieces."

The flight was nominal, said Rutan. Mike agreed: After the ship launched away from the carrier Plane White Knight "I couldn't believe how straight it was. Last time, I was all over the sky."

An inquiry into what caused the ship to roll, will be undertaken before the second prize flight. "One down and one to go," said Peter Diamandis, chairman of the X Prize Foundation.

Mike got his Astronaut wings already June 21, when he flew SpaceShipOne to 100 kilometers. The Xprize challenge however requires 3 people on 2 space return trips within 2 weeks. Wednesday's flight carried Melvill and ballast equivalent to two passengers for a total payload of 270 kilograms, or 594 pounds. To win the prize, SpaceShipOne must fly again by Oct. 13.

Rutan has said he'd like to launch it already next Monday Oct. 4, possibly with passengers along with the pilot.

"We are heading to orbit sooner than you think," Burt Rutan, the creator said earlier. "We do not intend to stay in low-earth orbit for decades. The next 25 years will be a wild ride. ... One that history will note was done for the benefit of everyone." Rutan said he expects the flight of SpaceShipOne to have an effect comparable to a set of public demonstrations that the Wright brothers carried out in Paris in 1908.

The reason, Rutan said, is because those demonstrations showed people "that's something I can do, because a couple of bicycle shop guys can do it". In the same way, he said, this low-cost flight into space will lead people to realise that "hey, this is something for us to do now, this is not just for governments ".

Vulcan, Inc and Scaled Composites the companies behind SpaceShipOne, are of 24 companies from several countries competing for the $10 million Ansari X Prize, which will go to the first privately funded group to send three people on a suborbital flight 62.5 miles (100.6 kilometers) high and repeat the feat within two weeks using the same vehicle.

The nonprofit X Prize Foundation is sponsoring the contest to promote the development of a low-cost, efficient craft for space tourism in the same way prize competitions stimulated commercial aviation in the early 20th century. The Ansari X Prize was modeled after the $25,000 prize that Charles Lindbergh won in his Spirit of St. Louis for the first solo New York-to-Paris flight across the Atlantic in 1927.

Even before Wednesday’s flight, Richard Branson, the airline mogul and adventurer, announced in London on Monday that his Virgin Group plans to offer passenger flight into space aboard rockets based on SpaceShipOne by 2007. Branson believes he will fly some 3,000 people into space in the first five years that his “Virgin Galactic” space line is operating.

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has invested more than $20 million in Scaled Composites to create the manned program -- a fraction of what government-sponsored efforts have cost. "[Private space flight] will undoubtedly lead to unprecedented new endeavors in the years to come," he said earlier.

"Space flight is not only for governments to do," Rutan said. "Clearly, there's an enormous pent-up hunger to fly into space and not just dream about it."

The craft embodies several innovations, including a unique hybrid rocket motor, a new method of re-entering the atmosphere that requires no active controls, and the first operational space vehicle made entirely of carbon composite rather than metal.

It was a tough choice among four experienced test pilots: Brian Binnie, Mike Melvill, Doug Shane, and Pete Siebold.

Of that group, Mike Melvill has chalked up the most time behind the controls of SpaceShipOne, counting captive flights, freefall glides and the last powered flight of the craft. He has worked for Burt Rutan for over 26 years and has some 24 years of experience as an experimental test pilot.

Mike Melvill's Resume

First flight of the following:

Model 72 GRIZZLY prototype, a short take-off and landing bush plane.
Model 77 SOLITAIRE prototype, a self-launching single place sailplane.
Model 81 CATBIRD prototype, a high performance 5 place general aviation aircraft.
Model 120 PREDATOR prototype, a high performance crop duster.
Model 144 prototype, ultimately flown as a UAV.
GAU-12/U25mm cannon in the Model 151 ARES jet fighter.
Model 202 BOOMERANG, Burt’s unconventional high performance twin.
Model 226 RAPTOR, later flown as an RPV.
Model 281 PROTEUS, a high altitude research twin engine jet.
Model 316 SPACESHIPONE

Participated in the flight testing of the following:

Beech Starship prototype (NGBA)
Fairchild’s Next Generation Trainer for the US Air Force (NGT)
ARES, a single engine, ground support jet fighter.
Pond Racer, a twin engine racing plane, designed to break the unlimited piston powered world speed record.
He is the only person to have flown in the Voyager Aircraft besides Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager.
Total flight time: 6950 hours in 127 fixed wing and 11 helicopters
Holds FAA Commercial certificate, ASEL, AMEL, instrument airplane, Rotorcraft-helicopter and Glider
Associate Fellow of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots
Was awarded the Ivan C. Kincheloe trophy in 1999 for his work on developmental high altitude flight testing of the model 281 Proteus
Member of the Aircraft Owners’ and Pilots’ Association
Member of the Experimental Aircraft Association

Personally built and flight tested:

Model 27 Variviggen
Model 61 Long-EZ
Flew his Long-EZ around the world in 1997.

Image of Pilot Michael Melvill (right), copilot Matthew Gionta (left) and Rutan after first flight. Courtesy of Popularmechanics.com

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