Private race to space sets start date

The private race to space is officially on, with the announcement on that the first attempt at the $10 million Ansari X-Prize will start on 29 September. And a second team is ready to make another attempt shortly afterwards.

Burt Rutan, whose SpaceShipOne became in June the first privately-funded craft to reach space, announced on Tuesday that his rocket will make its first X-Prize flight in 60 days time from the Mojave Spaceport in the California desert. It will then attempt to fly again just five days later.

The X-Prize rules only require that two flights be accomplished by the same craft within two weeks. But Rutan is eager to prove the quick-turnaround capabilities of his craft - and to allow a little margin for error.

As it did on 21 June, SpaceShipOne is expected to reach an altitude of 100 kilometres, or 62 miles, which is the altitude boundary chosen by the X-Prize Foundation as its definition of reaching space. But this time, the craft will carry additional weight equivalent to two passengers, as the competition's rules require.

SpaceShipOne had a few problems during its first spaceflight, but Rutan says those are now understood and under control. What seemed like an attitude-control system problem, he said, turned out not to be a malfunction at all. Instead it was a normal cutoff of one control system after the rocket engine completed its burn.

Helium balloon

Right behind SpaceShipOne is the da Vinci Project, based in Toronto, Canada, which is also planning a prize attempt in the autumn, though they have not yet set a date. Team leader Brian Feeney told New Scientist that his team would make its flights regardless of whether Rutan's team has already won the prize.

The da Vinci project's rocket, called Wild Fire, is now complete and will be revealed to the public on 5 August. It is to be carried to 24 kilometres by a helium balloon, allowing the rocket to be launched above most of the atmosphere. SpaceShipOne accomplishes the same thing by using a separate carrier airplane, called White Knight.

There are 26 contenders registered for the prize, proposing a wide variety of designs, but Rutan says: "It's interesting that both of us, the [X-Prize teams] furthest along, chose to do air launch." Both teams are also using similar hybrid rocket engines, which combine the simplicity and stability of solid rockets with the safety and controllability of liquid rockets.

X-Prize foundation president Peter Diamandis says the forthcoming attempts show "we are at a point when manned spaceflight is about to transition to something the rest of us can participate in".

The X-Prize is modelled on the Orteig Prize that spurred Charles Lindbergh's flight across the Atlantic. It is intended to help bring about economical access to space and thus launch new industries, beginning with space tourism.

The prize is set to expire if it has not been won by the end of 2004, but the foundation plans a further series of annual competitions.