July 2021
Nitrous oxide – a green propellant for commercial space exploration
...’s N2O/HTPB (Hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene) hybrid rocket motors capable of four restarts powered the SpaceShipOne suborbital spaceplane for 90 seconds. Although other formulations were trialled, serious combustion instability issues on firings...
January 2022
De Ayrshire ad Astra
... UK soil. So began an initial competitive search for UK-based spaceports, with the focus initially on Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipOne and Reaction Engines’ Skylon. The ‘competition’ gave way to a licencing regime, enabling any site to host a spaceport...
05 June 2017
The world's largest airplane gets its debut
... Composites, a Mojave-based aerospace company founded by Burt Rutan, Scaled Composites is also the company that built SpaceShipOne and White Knight Two – an aircraft that has been acquired by Virgin Galactic to add to their fleet of suborbital...
15 April 2019
Stratolaunch completes maiden flight successfully
..., had an estimated net worth of $20 billion at the time of his death. Prior to Stratolaunch, he spent $28 million to fund SpaceShipOne – a joint venture with Scaled Composites to create an experimental air-launched rocket-powered aircraft – which won...
22 June 2021
Space Tourism Business: The Foundations
... talking about space tourism – in the future tense - for more than 20 years is not his fault. When SpaceShipOne won the Ansari X-Prize in 2004, most of us expected tourists to be buying suborbital hops by the end of the decade...
