On this day in space! June 21, 2004: SpaceShipOne makes 1st privately funded human spaceflight

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On June 21, 2004, the first privately funded human spaceflight, launched on SpaceShipOne.

On June 21, 2004, the first privately funded human spaceflight, launched on SpaceShipOne. The ship flew 62.5 miles above Earth's surface — just a few miles above the boundary of space — for about 3 minutes before gliding back down to Earth.

Because SpaceShipOne didn't make a complete orbit around the planet, it made what's known as a suborbital flight. The experimental aircraft was designed and built by a private company called Scaled Composites, led by aerospace designer Burt Rutan.

The first privately funded human spaceflight, launched on SpaceShipOne, returns to a landing at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California on June 21, 2004. (Image credit: Scaled Composites)

SpaceShipOne was 28 feet long, about 5 feet in diameter, and had short, wide wings spanning 16 feet. One pilot and up to two passengers could fit on board. SpaceShipOne flew to space two more times that same year.

In October 2014, SpaceShipOne won the $10 million dollar Ansari X Prize for being the first privately developed and reusable spacecraft to make multiple trips to space. The spacecraft is now on display at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

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Hanneke Weitering
Hanneke Weitering
Contributing expert

Hanneke Weitering is a multimedia journalist in the Pacific Northwest reporting on the future of aviation at FutureFlight.aero and Aviation International News and was previously the Editor for Spaceflight and Astronomy news here at Space.com. As an editor with over 10 years of experience in science journalism she has previously written for Scholastic Classroom Magazines, MedPage Today and The Joint Institute for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After studying physics at the University of Tennessee in her hometown of Knoxville, she earned her graduate degree in Science, Health and Environmental Reporting (SHERP) from New York University. Hanneke joined the Space.com team in 2016 as a staff writer and producer, covering topics including spaceflight and astronomy. She currently lives in Seattle, home of the Space Needle, with her cat and two snakes. In her spare time, Hanneke enjoys exploring the Rocky Mountains, basking in nature and looking for dark skies to gaze at the cosmos.