SpaceShipOne Flight 17P

Suborbital altitude record for a manned spaceplane Sixth powered flight of Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne and winner of the $10 million X-Prize by becoming the second flight over 100 km within a week.

Sixth powered flight of Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne and winner of the $10 million X-Prize by becoming the second flight over 100 km within a week.

Objectives of the flight were to win the Ansari X-Prize and break the rocketplane altitude record set by the X-15 in 1963. The Tier One (White Knight/SpaceShipOne) composite aircraft took off at 06:49 PST. Drop of the rocketplane was made exactly one hour later at 14.4 km altitude. Pilot Brian Binnie fired the hybrid rocket motor, which burned for 83 seconds. The engine cut off with SpaceShipOne at Mach 3.09 (3524 kph) at 65 km altitude. From there it coasted to 112 km altitude. Binnie experienced weightlessness for 3.5 minutes before re-entry began. The spacecraft reached Mach 3.25 G's during re-entry and a peak deceleration of 5.4 G's at 32 km altitude. Binnie reconfigured the vehicle to a glider at 15.5 km and then made an 18 minute glide to a landing at Mojave airport. SpaceShipOne thereby won the $10 million X-Prize. No anomalies were noted on the flight and SpaceShipOne returned with no maintenance squawks.