While best known as the mother ship for SpaceShipOne, White Knight continued to fly missions after delivering SpaceShipOne to the Smithsonian in 2005! The pylon that used to carry a spaceship had multiple payloads integrated onto it in the following years, one of which was the X-37. In 2006, White Knight conducted captive carry missions carrying the X-37 which concluded in drop tests – the first of which happened on April 7, 2006. Learn more about White Knight: https://bit.ly/ScaledWK #FirstFlightFridays #PayloadTesting #DropTest #FlightTest
I worked for Boeing on that program. Scaled was very helpful.
Hey! I worked the X-37 for a while.
Huh. I did not know that. Learn something new everyday!
Thank you Burt Ratan
Retired. Prior Executive Director and Program Manager for Boeing Aerospace programs.
2moWorked this test program too. It was quite a refreshing shift to move the flight test program to Mojave and Scaled Composites. We were able to operate a bit under the Boeing radar so had a lot of flexibility in conducting the tests and working with the innovative Scaled Composites folks.