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Twelve pilots flew the X-15 over the course of its career. Scott Crossfield and William Dana flew the X-15 on its first and last free flights, respectively. Joseph Walker set the program's top two altitude records on its 90th and 91st free flights (347,800 and 354,200 feet, respectively), becoming the only pilot to fly past the Kármán line, the 100 kilometer, FAI-recognized boundary of outer ...
The altitude was the highest crewed flight by a spaceplane to that time, and remained the record until the 1981 flight of Space Shuttle Columbia. Walker landed the X-15 about 12 minutes after it was launched, at Rogers Dry Lake, Edwards Airforce Base, in California. This was Walker's final X-15 flight.
The main rocket engine operated only for a relatively short part of the flight but boosted the X-15 to its high speeds and altitudes. Without the main rocket engine thrust, the X-15's instruments and control surfaces remained functional, but the aircraft could not maintain altitude.
X-15 Flight 3-65-97, also known as X-15 Flight 191 (being the 191st free flight of the X-15), was a sub-orbital spaceflight of the North American X-15 experimental spaceplane, carrying seven experiments to a peak altitude of 266,000 feet (50.4 mi; 81 km; 43.8 nmi), above NASA's definition of the start of space at 50 miles (80 km) but below the Kármán line definition at 62 miles (100 km).
On October 30, 1964, Walker took the LLRV on its maiden flight, reaching an altitude of about 10 ft and a total flight time of just under one minute. [11] He piloted 35 LLRV flights in total. Neil Armstrong later flew this craft many times in preparation for the spaceflight of Apollo 11 – the first human landing on the Moon – including ...
Flight 90 of the North American X-15 was a research flight conducted by NASA and the US Air Force on July 19, 1963. It was the first of two X-15 missions that passed the 100-km high Kármán line, the FAI definition of space, along with Flight 91 the next month. The X-15 was flown by Joseph A. Walker, who flew both X-15 spaceflights over the ...
Highest altitude for crewed non-lunar mission [ edit ] Polaris Dawn crew Jared Isaacman , Scott Poteet , Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon fired their Crew Dragon Resilience 's Draco thrusters on 11 September 2024 at 00:27 UTC, at 15 hours and 4 minutes after liftoff and achieved a record apogee altitude of 874.95 miles (1,408.10 km).
Robert Michael White (July 6, 1924 – March 17, 2010) (Maj Gen, USAF) [2] was an American electrical engineer, test pilot, fighter pilot, and astronaut. [3] [4] He was one of twelve pilots who flew the North American X-15, an experimental spaceplane jointly operated by the Air Force and NASA.