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File:World's First Five Spaceplanes (signed).png - Wikimedia Commons

  • ️Mon Jun 28 2021
Description

English: 'World's First Five Spaceplanes'. The world's first five spaceplanes flew within the first 50 years of human spaceflight. North American X-15 reached space in 1962/1963 (USAF/FAI Kármán line classifications). Space Shuttle and Buran reached space in 1980s. SpaceShipOne in 2004, piloted by world's first commercial astronaut. Boeing X-37 flew in 2010. Both X-15 and SpaceShipOne ascend horizontally from a mother ship. Both Buran and X-37 spaceflights were uncrewed. X-37 launches atop Centaur and Atlas V rockets.

This image was personally created by myself. Kelvin Case publicly licenses all personally created portions of this image under the Creative Commons license. Some portions of this image are derived of images produced by U.S. government sources, specifically from the following image files: File:Atlas EELV family.png, File:Boeing X-37B inside payload fairing before launch.jpg, File:Centaur upper stage of Atlas V rocket.jpg, File:Roundel of the USAF.svg, File:Size Comparison.png, File:X-15.jpg, File:X-15 three view diagram .png, SpaceShipOne image posted at NASA http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/SpaceShipOne.html. Additionally, other image sources were reviewed during the creation of this image. Reference images reviewed in addition to those images listed above are as follows: