Burt Rutan Assigned Rights To Winged Spacecraft Reentry System | Aero-News Network
Aero-News Network
RSS icon RSS feed
podcast icon MP3 podcast
Subscribe Aero-News e-mail Newsletter Subscribe

Airborne Unlimited -- Most Recent Daily Episodes

Episode Date

Airborne-Monday

Airborne-Tuesday

Airborne-Wednesday Airborne-Thursday

Airborne-Friday

Airborne On YouTube

Airborne-Unlimited-06.23.25

Airborne-NextGen-06.24.25

AirborneUnlimited-06.25.25

Airborne-AffordableFlyers-06.26.25

AirborneUnlimited-06.27.25

Tue, Apr 10, 2007

Burt Rutan Assigned Rights To Winged Spacecraft Reentry System

The 'Shuttlecock' Is Now Patented

It was one of the first true breakthroughs seen in the young commercial spaceflight industry... and as of last month, it's now patented.

Aero-News learned Monday the revolutionary "shuttlecock," or "feathering" wing system seen on Burt Rutan's groundbreaking SpaceShipOne vehicle -- which rotated its empennage to orient the spacecraft in an optimal attitude for atmospheric reentry -- received US Patent Number 7,195,207 on March 27.

According to the US Patent Office, Rutan now has the rights to a spacecraft design including "...a fuselage, right and left wings extending from the fuselage, the wings having hinged aft sections with outer ends supporting rearwardly extending tail booms with vertical and horizontal tails with rudders and elevons, and an elevating system coupled between the fuselage and the aft wing sections for moving the sections from a normal airfoil shape to an elevated position producing high drag for slowing the spacecraft during atmospheric reentry after space flight, the elevating system thereafter retracting the aft wing sections to the normal airfoil shape for a controlled generally horizontal runway landing."

"Atmospheric reentry of a returning spacecraft is a critical flight phase due to high structural and thermal-heating loads," the summary reads. "Horizontal-landing modern spacecraft intended for runway landing require three-axis control and more lift as compared to early blunt-body spacecraft (Mercury, Gemini, etc.), which were lowered by parachute during landing.

"This invention relates to a winged spacecraft which is reconfigurable during reentry to a stable high-drag mode, and then returned to a regular flight condition for runway landing (shown above -- Ed.)"

"The invention is described in terms of a suborbital spaceship, but is applicable to craft capable of orbital flight."

That last statement may provide a tantalizing peek at what's to come, as Rutan's Scaled Composites puts the finishing touches on SpaceShipTwo -- a larger, multipassenger version of SpaceShipOne, that will fly for Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic. That spacrcraft is scheduled to begin ferrying passengers into suborbital space in late 2009.

FMI: www.scaled.com, Read The Full Patent

Advertisement

More News

NTSB Prelim: Piper PA-23

Pilot Also Reported That Due To A Fuel Leak, The Auxiliary Fuel Tanks Were Not Used On June 4, 2025, at 13:41 eastern daylight time, a Piper PA-23, N2109P, was substantially damage>[...]

ANN FAQ: Submit a News Story!

Have A Story That NEEDS To Be Featured On Aero-News? Here’s How To Submit A Story To Our Team Some of the greatest new stories ANN has ever covered have been submitted by our>[...]

Classic Aero-TV: One Man’s Vietnam

From 2023 (YouTube Edition): Reflections on War’s Collective Lessons and Cyclical Nature The exigencies of war ought be colorblind. Inane social-constructs the likes of racis>[...]

ANN's Daily Aero-Linx (07.03.25)

Aero Linx: Colorado Pilots Association (CPA) Colorado Pilots Association was incorporated as a Colorado Nonprofit Corporation in 1972. It is a statewide organization with over 700 >[...]

ANN's Daily Aero-Term (07.03.25): High Speed Taxiway

High Speed Taxiway A long radius taxiway designed and provided with lighting or marking to define the path of aircraft, traveling at high speed (up to 60 knots), from the runway ce>[...]

blog comments powered by Disqus



Advertisement

Advertisement

Podcasts

Advertisement

© 2007 - 2025 Web Development & Design by Pauli Systems, LC