page_title: Burt Rutan
section_title: Spacecraft designs
hierarchical_section_title: Burt Rutan / Spacecraft designs
caption_attribution_description: English: The Scaled Composites SpaceShipTwo spaceplane (central fuselage) resting under its mothership, White Knight Two, inside a hangar in Mojave, Ca., USA.
context_page_description: Elbert Leander "Burt" Rutan is a retired American aerospace engineer and entrepreneur noted for his originality in designing light, strong, unusual-looking, energy-efficient aircraft. He designed the record-breaking Voyager, which in 1986 was the first plane to fly around the world without stopping or refueling, and the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer, which in 2006 set the world record for the fastest and longest nonstop non-refueled circumnavigation flight in history. In 2004, Rutan's sub-orbital spaceplane design SpaceShipOne became the first privately funded spacecraft to enter the realm of space, winning the Ansari X-Prize that year for achieving the feat twice within a two-week period.
  With his VariEze and Long-EZ designs, which first flew in 1975 and 1979 respectively, Rutan is responsible for helping popularize both the canard configuration and the use of moldless composite construction in the homebuilt aircraft industry. He is the founder or co-founder of multiple aerospace companies, including the Rutan Aircraft Factory, Scaled Composites, Mojave Aerospace Ventures, and The Spaceship Company.
context_section_description: SpaceShipOne
  Rutan made headlines again in June 2004 with SpaceShipOne, which became the first privately built, flown and funded manned craft to reach space. The project, named "Tier One" (later known as Tier 1b), was developed and flown by Mojave Aerospace Ventures, which is part-owned by Scaled Composites and was a joint venture between Allen and Rutan. On October 4, the SpaceShipOne team won the Ansari X Prize, completing two flights within two weeks, flying with the equivalent weight of 3 persons, and doing so while reusing at least 80% of the vehicle hardware. The project team was honored with the 2004 Collier Trophy, awarded by the National Aeronautic Association for "greatest achievement in aeronautics or astronautics in America." The craft embodies Rutan's unique style, and is another of the "icons of flight" displayed in the NASM Milestones of Flight exhibit.
  SpaceShipTwo Project
  Virgin Galactic—an offshoot of businessman and investor Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group, and the parent company of Branson and Rutan's 2005 spacecraft manufacturing startup The Spaceship Company—announced that it would begin space tourism flights in 2008 using craft based on the designs of SpaceShipOne. Dubbed SpaceShipTwo, these new craft, also designed by Rutan, are intended to allow six "experience optimized" passengers to glimpse the planet from 70–80 miles up in suborbital space.  Production of the first of five planned SpaceShipTwo craft has started, but commercial flights did not begin in 2008 as planned. An explosion at the Scaled Composite factory at the Mojave Spaceport on July 26, 2007, which killed three engineers and seriously injured three others, may have contributed to the delay. They were testing components for SpaceShipTwo, but as of August 2007 Scaled Composites remained dedicated to perfecting the design of SpaceShipTwo. Virgin continues to work on developing SpaceShipTwo, but it has stopped predicting when commercial spaceflights will begin. A further SpaceshipTwo accident on October 31, 2014 (VSS Enterprise tail number: N339SS) resulted in the death of copilot Michael Alsbury and injuries to the pilot.
  Rutan was also working with t/Space in the mid-2000s on the development of an air launched, two-stage-to-orbit, manned spacecraft. It was intended to have a taxi capacity to carry passengers to the International Space Station. In June 2005, air drop tests of quarter scale mockups verified the practicality of air release and rotation to vertical.
  White Knight One and Two
  On July 28, 2008, Richard Branson unveiled Scaled Composites White Knight Two "Eve," at the Mojave Spaceport. The jet-powered cargo aircraft is based on SpaceShipOne's successful mothership, White Knight One, which was designed by Rutan and based on Proteus. Flight tests were set to begin in September 2008. The launch customer of White Knight Two is Virgin Galactic, which will have the first 2 units, and exclusive rights to the craft for the first few years. In 2008, Branson predicted that the maiden space voyage would take place within 18 months: "It represents... the chance for our ever-growing group of future astronauts and other scientists to see our world in a completely new light." Virgin Galactic contracted Rutan to build the mothership and spacecraft.
caption: SpaceShipTwo (central fuselage) carried under its twin fuselage mother ship, White Knight Two
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