aerospace founded mojave california 1982 headquarters mojave california key people as of nov. 1 2015 ben diachun president formerly kevin mickey president burt rutan founder products air vehicle design tooling and manufacturing specialty composite structure design analysis and fabrication and developmental flight test revenue 20 30 million number of employees over 200 parent northrop grumman slogan question never defend website scaled.com scaled composites often abbreviated as scaled is an american aerospace company founded by burt rutan and currently owned by northrop grumman that is located at the mojave spaceport mojave california united states . prior to acquisition by northrop grumman the company was founded to develop experimental aircraft but now focuses on designing and developing concept craft and prototype fabrication processes for aircraft and other vehicles . it is known for unconventional designs for its use of non metal composite materials and for winning the ansari x prize with its experimental spacecraft spaceshipone . contents 1 company history 1.1 early projects 1.2 spaceshipone 1.3 stratolaunch carrier aircraft 1.4 rutan aircraft factory aircraft 1.5 scaled composites aircraft 1.6 other aircraft projects 2 non aircraft work 3 accidents and incidents 4 references 5 external links company history edit scaled composites was established in 1982 and purchased by the beech aircraft corporation in 1985 as a result of the collaboration on the starship project . in 1988 beech s parent company raytheon sold scaled back to rutan who then sold it to wyman gordon . after wyman gordon was acquired by precision castparts corp. rutan and ten investors re acquired the company as scaled composites llc . northrop grumman a major shareholder in the company with a 40 % stake said it would acquire the company outright on july 20 2007 . both companies said northrop grumman s acquisition would not affect scaled composites strategy or involve replacing burt rutan as senior manager . 1 2 the acquisition by northrop grumman was completed on august 24 2007 . 3 rutan retired in april 2011 . 4 early projects edit before forming scaled composites burt rutan had designed several aircraft for amateur builders including the varieze often considered one of general aviation s most innovative designs . citation needed he also designed the beechcraft starship which was however a commercial failure . these aircraft were distinctive because of their canard configuration winglets and pusher propellers . before spaceshipone rutan was best known for his voyager aircraft which his brother dick rutan and jeana yeager flew around the world without refueling in 1986 . in 2005 the single jet global flyer was flown by billionaire adventurer steve fossett on the first solo non stop non refueled flight around the world and later in the longest flight in history 41 467.53 km 25 766.73 mi . although their role was not widely publicized rutan and john roncz who had provided aerodynamics support to a number of previous rutan projects including starship helped design and scaled manufactured the double slotted wing mast for the stars & stripes catamaran for dennis conner s entry in the 1988 america s cup . 5 spaceshipone edit main article scaled composites spaceshipone the white knight carries spaceshipone on flight 16p september 29 2004 l to r marion blakely faa chief . commercial astronaut michael winston mike melvill sir richard charles nicholas branson elbert leander burt rutan william brian binnie & paul gardner allen reflect on a misson accomplished october 4 2004 the company announced in april 2003 that it was working on a privately funded spacecraft in an attempt to win the ansari x prize for the first private manned spaceflight . this experimental rocket powered spacecraft was given the name spaceshipone . on december 17 2003 they announced spaceshipone s first supersonic flight the first flight of its kind by a privately funded aircraft . spaceshipone successfully made this flight reaching 68 000 feet 21 000 m and 930 mph mach 1.2 . the craft was taken aloft by the white knight carrier aircraft . on the same day paul allen one of the founders of microsoft confirmed publicly the rumors that he was the angel investor behind the spaceshipone venture . on april 1 2004 the u.s. department of transportation issued the company what it called the world s first license for a sub orbital manned rocket flight . 6 the license was approved by the federal aviation administration s office of commercial space transportation which has backed licenses for more than 150 commercial launches of unmanned launch vehicles in its 20 years but never a license for manned flight on a sub orbital trajectory . the mojave airport operating part time as mojave spaceport is the launch point for spaceshipone . spaceshipone performed the first privately funded human spaceflight on june 21 2004 . flight 16p on september 29 2004 and flight 17p on october 4 2004 won the x prize for scaled composites and spaceshipone . stratolaunch carrier aircraft edit main article scaled composites stratolaunch artist s depiction of stratolauch carrier at apogee just before launching spacecraft center vehicle into orbit . wingspan comparison of the stratolaunch carrier with other large airplanes scaled composites model 351 nicknamed the roc is being built for stratolaunch systems to provide a platform from which air launch space missions can be staged . 7 with a wingspan of 117 m 385 ft the design has the longest wingspan of any airplane to date july 2015 . 8 in august 2015 scaled composites president kevin mickey stated the company has so far assembled roughly 200 000 pounds of composite structure for the vehicle and if put on a football field its wingtips would extend beyond the goalposts by 15 feet on each side . 9 each of the twin fuselages of the aircraft is 238 feet 72 metres long and will be supported by 12 main landing gear wheels and two nose gear wheels . it will require 12 000 feet of runway to lift off . 10 rutan aircraft factory aircraft edit rutan aircraft s first model 32 variviggen 1972 rutan model 61 long ez burt rutan created rutan aircraft factory to market a commercial variation of his the model variviggen prototype he began building in his garage in 1968 which he called the model 32 also known as the variviggen sp . this model which utilized a slightly longer fuselage larger span and winglets in order to increase efficiency . the rutan aircraft factory sold over 600 plan sets for the variviggen to homebuilders and eventually about 20 of the aircraft were built . following the crash of one in new brunswick canada in september 2006 due to wing tank fuel contamination 11 fewer than five are currently still flying . the prototype aircraft n27vv was donated to the eaa airventure museum in 1988 . a rutan variviggen was used in the 1975 film death race 2000 . model 27 variviggen 1972 model 31 varieze 1975 model 32 variviggen sp 1973 model 33 varieze 1976 model 35 ad 1 1979 model 40 74 defiant 1978 model 54 quickie 1978 model 61 long ez 1979 nasa ad 1 1979 model 68 amsoil racer 1981 model 73 ngt three fifths scale model of fairchild t 46 trainer 1981 model 72 grizzly 1982 model 76 voyager first aircraft to circumnavigate the earth non refueled non stop 1986 model 77 solitaire 1982 scaled composites aircraft edit model 76 voyager beechcraft 2000 starship based upon the model 115 model 115 starship 85 % scale prototype went into production as the beechcraft model 2000 starship 1982 b 2 spirit scale model pole mounted b 2 for radar cross section tests citation needed model 133 attt 1987 tandem wing stol transport model 81 catbird 1988 five seat single engine aircraft model 143 triumph built for beechcraft 1988 iai searcher longer winged version of pioneer uav 1988 citation needed model tra324 scarab developed for teledyne ryan now northrop grumman 1988 dc x constructed the structural aeroshell and control surfaces under contract to mcdonnell douglas model 151 ares 1990 orbital sciences pegasus rocket wings fins for air launch rocket 1990 model 158 pond racer built for air racer bob pond 1990 bell eagle eye tilt rotor demonstrator aircraft for bell helicopter 1993 model 202 boomerang asymmetric 5 seat aircraft model 205 first preliminary design for airlaunch of a booster rocket heavier than 500 000 pounds 230 000 kg 1991 12 model 206 second preliminary design for heavy airlaunch 1991 12 model 247 vantage developed for visionaire 1996 model 271 v jet ii developed for williams international 1997 citation needed model 276 nasa x 38 fuselage of drop test vehicle 1998 model 281 proteus 1998 roton atv 1999 model 287 nasa erast r c model for proof of concept of 85 000 ft 26 000 m uav model 309 adam m 309 prototype for the adam a500 2000 model 326 northrop grumman x 47a 2001 model 302 toyota taa 1 2002 tier one 2003 model 316 spaceshipone the first privately built spacecraft . model 318 white knight the launch vehicle for spaceshipone . model 311 virgin atlantic globalflyer same mission as voyager except a solo flight using a jet engine 2004 tier 1b 2008 model 339 spaceshiptwo 13 the successor to spaceshipone model 348 whiteknighttwo 13 the successor to white knight stratolaunch carrier aircraft model 351 world s largest wingspan aircraft 14 model 367 bipod 2011 a hybrid electric roadable aircraft . usaf hunter killer project 2007 in cooperation with northrop grumman model 395 proposed unmanned version of model 281 equipped with armament model 396 smaller version of the rq 4 global hawk equipped with armament spaceshipthree the name of the proposed next iteration of scaled composites manned spacecraft series . 15 launcherone the orbital launch vehicle now under development for virgin galactic 16 based on the technology from the spaceship series of scaled composites . 17 other aircraft projects edit us flight based testing and evaluation of the gippsaero ga8 airvan manufactured by gippsaero of victoria australia including flight evaluation of the external belly cargo pod . citation needed non aircraft work edit stars & stripes the catamaran that formed dennis conner s american entry for the america s cup yacht race 1988 power augmented ram landing craft parlc for the u.s. navy . general motors ultralite 1992 accidents and incidents edit on july 26 2007 an explosion occurred during testing of spaceshiptwo s systems killing three employees and injuring three more . 18 on october 31 2014 the spaceshiptwo vss enterprise broke apart during an in flight powered test . the incident killed one pilot and severely injured the other resulting in the total loss of the vehicle ; both pilots were scaled employees . 19 20 on july 28 2015 the ntsb released the final report on its investigation of the incident concluding that for an unknown reason the pilot had released the feather of spaceshiptwo prematurely leading directly to the craft s disintegration . 21 references edit mp rtip rutan to get first crack at flight test . uvonline.com . shephard group . archived from the original on september 28 2007 . retrieved december 7 2006 . associated press july 20 2007 . northrop to own spaceshipone builder . forbes . retrieved july 27 2007 . dead link northrop grumman completes acquisition of scaled composites llc . retrieved august 25 2007 . dead link burt rutan announces retirement plans pdf . retrieved july 10 2011 . https books.google.com books id hqiht38dtvac & pg pa52 & lpg pa52 & source bl & ots t95vf3aq3g & sig ixldvktyr2jrsrazqwn9ppvmsfe spaceshipone gets federal go ahead . msnbc.msn.com . retrieved december 9 2009 . stratolaunch and orbital the height of air launch . retrieved august 10 2015 . world s biggest plane stratolaunch carrier aircraft to launch in 2016 daily mail online . mail online . retrieved august 10 2015 . mariella moon . largest plane in the world to perform test flights in 2016 . engadget . aol . retrieved