Mojave Aerospace Ventures

Mojave Aerospace Ventures (MAV) is a company founded by Paul Allen and Burt Rutan to handle the commercial spinoffs from the Tier One project. It owns the intellectual property arising from Tier One, and it is in turn owned by Paul Allen (the majority shareholder) and Burt Rutan. In 2004, it signed a deal with Virgin Galactic to develop the Virgin SpaceShip, a suborbital spacecraft, for space tourism. Virgin Group and Scaled have subsequently formed a joint venture, The Spaceship Company, to manufacture the spacecraft.