What was the name of the spacecraft that won the Ansari X Prize in 2004?

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SpaceShipOne won the Ansari X Prize in 2004.

The privately funded spacecraft completed two qualifying flights within 14 days, reaching the required altitude of at least 100 kilometres with the equivalent of three people aboard. The second winning flight took place on 4 October 2004, and the team received the 10-million-dollar prize. Mojave Aerospace Ventures backed the project, while Scaled Composites designed and built the vehicle.

SpaceShipOne was air-launched from White Knight, a carrier aircraft, rather than launched vertically from the ground. It was a suborbital spaceplane, not an orbital spacecraft. SpaceShipTwo and VSS Unity belong to a later Virgin Galactic program inspired by the same general air-launch approach, but neither is the vehicle that won the prize.

Source: Wikipedia · fact-checked Sept. 2026

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