Scaled Composites White Knight

Common card · No. 337217

The Scaled Composites Model 318 White Knight (now also called White Knight One) is a jet-powered carrier aircraft that was used to launch its companion SpaceShipOne, an experimental spaceplane. The White Knight and SpaceShipOne were designed by Burt Rutan and manufactured by Scaled Composites, a private company founded by Rutan in 1982. On three separate flights in 2004, White Knight conducted SpaceShipOne into flight, and SpaceShipOne then performed a sub-orbital spaceflight, becoming the first private craft to reach space. The White Knight is notable as an example of a mother ship which carried a parasite aircraft into flight, releasing the latter which would then execute a high-altitude flight, or a sub-orbital spaceflight. This flight profile is shared with The High and Mighty One and Balls 8, two modified B-52s which carried the North American X-15 into flight. It is also shared with White Knight Two, a descendant which carries SpaceShipTwo into flight as part of the Virgin Galactic...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Don Ramey Logan, CC BY-SA 3.0