Thanks to the permission and the talents of Alan Radecki, we're pleased to share the following photos with you of the most recent test flight of SpaceShip One and the landing problems it encountered.

As was previously reported, the White Knight turbojet launch aircraft, flown by test pilot Peter Siebold, carried research rocket plane SpaceShipOne to 48,000 feet near the desert town of California City (CA).

At 8:15 a.m. PDT, 12/17/03, White Knight Flight engineer Cory Bird pulled a handle to release SpaceShipOne. The spaceship's test pilot, Brian Binnie then flew it to a stable 0.55 Mach gliding flight condition, started a pull-up, and fired its hybrid rocket motor.

Nine seconds later, SpaceShipOne broke the sound barrier and continued its steep powered ascent. The climb was very aggressive, accelerating forward at more than three times normal gravity while pulling upward at more than 2.5 g's. When the motor shutdown, 15 seconds after ignition, SpaceShipOne was climbing at a 60-degree angle and flying near 1.2 Mach (930 mph).

Brian then continued the maneuver to a vertical climb, achieving zero speed at an altitude of 68,000 feet. He then configured the ship in its high-drag "feathered" shape to simulate the condition it will experience when it enters the atmosphere after a space flight.

At apogee, SpaceShipOne was in near-weightless conditions, emulating the characteristics it will later encounter during the planned space flights in which it will be at zero-g for more than three minutes.

After descending in feathered flight for about a minute, Brian reconfigured the ship to its conventional glider shape and flew a 12-minute glide to landing at Scaled's home airport of Mojave (CA).

The landing was not without incident as the left landing gear retracted at touchdown causing the ship to veer to the left and leave the runway with its left wing down.

Scaled reports damage from the landing incident was minor and can easily be repaired. There were no injuries.

FMI: www.scaled.com, www.mojavebooks.com/mhv/index.html