Private spaceship completes its third test

SpaceShipOne soars beyond 200,000 feet in altitude

 Chalk up another booming flight of the privately backed SpaceShipOne, the piloted rocket plane designed to soar to the edge of space and glide to a runway landing.

With pilot Mike Melvill at the controls — following release from the White Knight turbojet-powered launch aircraft high above California's Mojave Desert — SpaceShipOne punched through the sky Thursday boosted by a hybrid propellant rocket motor.

Scaled Composites of Mojave, Calif., is the builder of SpaceShipOne, an effort led by aviation innovator Burt Rutan. The financial backer of the project is Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. (MSNBC is a Microsoft-NBC joint venture.)

In a post-flight statement from the company, the SpaceShipOne team reported that their space plane flew to 212,000 feet altitude, almost 41 miles. NASA awards astronaut status to anyone who flies above 50 miles in altitude.

"This flight marks an additional milestone for Paul G. Allen, Burt Rutan and the innovative aerospace design team in their ongoing efforts to complete the first non-government manned space flight. The test is part of Scaled Composites' Tier One program, funded by Allen, Microsoft co-founder and CEO of Vulcan Inc.," according to the statement.

Thursday's flight builds upon a progression of 13 shakeout tests, mostly unpowered drop glides along with two engine-thrusting runs. The White Knight took off with SpaceShipOne at around 10:30 a.m. ET with the rocket plane landing an the ground a little after noon.

"The SpaceShipOne team will announce the results of this test flight once it has completed an analysis of the data," explained the Scaled Composites release, adding: "The future's looking  up ... way up!"

Hot pursuit

SpaceShipOne's first powered mission took place last Dec. 17, with the hybrid motor firing for 15 seconds. A second powered flight occurred on April 8. In that trek, the motor burned for 40 seconds. A major contractor for the hybrid motor used in the rocket plane is SpaceDev of Poway, Calif.

Routine recording of multiple video streams on board White Knight and on SpaceShipOne are expected to help in pilot and engineering evaluation of the flight.

Ecliptic Enterprises Corp. of Pasadena, Calif., provides the critical camera gear. They are also supplier of the RocketCam line of onboard video systems used on rockets, spacecraft and other remote platforms.