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Mon, Feb 28, 2005

What About SpaceShipTwo?

Commercial Astronaut Says Sim Complete, Design Underway

As the world's first commercial astronaut prepares to take his space vessel and its mothership on an unprecedented cross-country flight to Oshkosh, WI, for AirVenture 2005, Mike Melvill and Scaled Composites are working hard to develop a second generation commercial space vehicle.

"We are working hard in that direction," Melvill told ANN during an EAA conference call last week. "We already have a simulator set up. In the simulator, SpaceShipTwo already flies better than SpaceShipOne did."

One of the keys to that better performance is better control separation for each axis of flight -- pitch, yaw, roll, Melvill said.

"SpaceShipOne was a little tricky to fly. The new design that Burt's got on the drawing board seems a much benign, easier-to-fly airplane."

That would probably come as something of a relief to Melvill. During his first X-Prize attempt, Melvill's series of 29 unplanned rolls while in near-vertical flight caused the world to hold its breath. The rolls were much more dramatic than they seemed -- there was virtually no undue stress on the spacecraft, according to Melvill.

"The design [of SpaceShipTwo] has obviously grown from [the design of SpaceShipOne] into a better aerodynamic design," Melvill said.

Melvill didn't say when there would be more news on SpaceShipTwo, but told us (as we often tell you)... stay tuned.

FMI: www.scaled.com

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