Mike Melvill

Michael Winston Melvill (November 30, 1940 – March 19, 2026) was a South African-born American world-record-breaking pilot and 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, flight 15P on June 21, 2004, thus becoming the first commercial astronaut, and the 435th person to go into space. He was also the pilot on SpaceShipOne's flight 16P, the first competitive flight in the Ansari X Prize competition.

Life and career

Michael Winston Melvill was born in Johannesburg, South Africa on November 30, 1940.

In 1978, Melvill met aerospace designer and Scaled Composites founder Burt Rutan when he flew to California to show Rutan the VariViggen he had built at his home. Rutan then hired him on the spot. In 1982, he was named Rutan's lead test pilot.

Melvill was a founding member of the team that made the Rutan Voyager around the world aircraft. He was the only person other than Voyager's crew, Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, to have flown the aircraft.

In 1997, Melvill and Dick Rutan, Burt's brother, flew two Long-EZ aircraft that they built side-by-side around the world. This "around the world in 80 nights" flight was called The Spirit of EAA Friendship World Tour, and some legs of it lasted for over 14 hours.

His famous 2004 flights in SpaceshipOne earned him and the entire project team the Ansari X Prize of $10 million and helped spur the beginning of the global private space race.

Melvill died on March 19, 2026, at the age of 85.

Awards and achievements

As of January 2020, Melvill was the sole or joint holder of ten FAI aviation world records in various categories.

Melvill was awarded the Iven C. Kincheloe Award in 1999 for high altitude, developmental flight-testing of the model 281 Proteus aircraft.