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Michael W. Melvill (born November 1941) is one of
the test pilots for SpaceShipOne, the experimental
spaceplane developed by Scaled Composites. Melvill
piloted SpaceShipOne on its first flight past the
edge of space, SpaceShipOne flight 15P|flight 15P
on June 21, 2004, thus becoming the first
commercial astronaut and the 433rd person to go
into space. He was also the pilot on
SpaceShipOne's SpaceShipOne flight 16P|flight 16P,
the first competitive flight in the Ansari X Prize
competition. 

Originally from Durban, South Africa, Melvill
moved to the United States from England in the
1970s and became a U.S. citizen. Melvill is
married; he and his wife Sally have one son and
four grandchildren.

Melvill is the vice president and general manager
of Scaled Composites, LLC; he has 24 years of
experience as a test pilot, and has logged nearly
7000 hours in over 130 types of aircraft. A
longtime acquaintance of Scaled Composites founder
Burt Rutan, Melvill has flown the first flights of
nine of Rutan's aircraft. Melvill also helped
develop the docking system for SpaceShipOne.

Melvill is an associate fellow of the Society of
Experimental Test Pilots; in 1999, he received
their Iven C. Kincheloe trophy for his work in
high-altitude development testing Scaled's Scaled
Composites Proteus|Model 281 Proteus. Melvill also
built his own Rutan Long-EZ|Long EZ aircraft,
which he flew around the world with Dick Rutan in
1997. He is also the only person other than Dick
Rutan or Jeana Yeager to have piloted the Scaled
Composites Voyager|Voyager aircraft.

Melvill was the pilot for SpaceShipOne flight 15P,
SpaceShipOne's first spaceflight and the first
privately-funded human spaceflight mission, on the
morning of June 21, 2004. In a ceremony two hours
after landing, Melvill was awarded his Astronaut
Badge|astronaut wings, the first person to earn
them for a spaceplane flight since the North
American X-15|X-15 flights of the 1960s.

==External links==

*
http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/melvill.htm
Scaled Composites biography
* http://www.earthrounders.com/melvill.html Sport
Aviation article by Melvill describing his
round-the-world trip

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