section_path: Early test vehicles/Charon
section_name: Charon
paragraph_text: Charon
  
  The company's first flight test vehicle, called Charon after Pluto 's moon, was powered by four vertically mounted Rolls-Royce Viper Mk. 301 jet engines rather than rockets. The low-altitude vehicle was developed to test autonomous guidance and control technologies, and the processes that the company would use to develop its later rockets. Charon made its only test flight at Moses Lake, Washington on March 5, 2005. It flew to an altitude of 96 m (316 ft) before returning for a controlled landing near the liftoff point. As of 2016, Charon is on display at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington.