A group of British engineers and scientists unveiled their first manned space capsule today, the latest accomplishment in a global competition to loft a privately developed craft on a suborbital hop.

Starchaser Industries, one of 24 teams racing to win the X-Prize space tourism competition, debuted the Nova II capsule during a presentation at the Village Hotel and Leisure Club in Hyde, England. The one-seater module is about 10 feet (3 meters) long, weighs 536 pounds (200 kilograms) and will serve as a testbed for Starchaser's final X-Prize entry.

"It's surprisingly spacious, though the control console is close to the passenger seat," said Starchaser propulsion scientist Robin Hague during a telephone interview.

Initial drop tests, conducted from 14,000 feet (4,267 meters) above the Red Lake Drop Zone in Arizona, will be unmanned to evaluate the steerable parachute meant to slow the craft and guide it Earthward. But once the capsule has proven itself, manned practice drops should follow, along with an eventual manned launch to a height of at least 30,000 feet (9,144 meters).

Starchaser managing director Steven Bennett is set to pilot the subsequent manned tests, as well as the final spaceworthy vehicle, Hague added.

The X-Prize was launched in 1996 by the X-Prize Foundation to open space tourism to the public-at-large instead of confining such celestial jaunts to adventurous millionaires.

In order to snag the $10-million X-Prize, participants must send at least one person (but have the capacity to send three total) to a height of 62.5 miles (100 kilometers) and return safely to terra firma. The mission must be repeated within two weeks to be eligible for the prize. The competition has drawn competitors from seven nations, including Argentina, Canada, England, Israel, Romania, Russia and the United States.

Project Thunderbird, the official name of Starchaser's X-Prize bid, consists of a three-person capsule atop an evolved version of the company’s Nova rocket, first tested in November 2001. The two-stage rocket is expected to deliver Thunderbird's crew capsule to a maximum height of 100 kilometers, where astronauts will experience about four minutes of weightlessness before returning to Earth. The craft will then reenter the atmosphere and deploy a steerable parachute to make its landing.

"We're cautiously optimistic," Hague said of the Starchaser effort. "The X-Prize competition certainly seems to be moving up."

Meanwhile, Armadillo Aerospace of Mesquite, Texas - which joined the competition last October - has already conducted manned testing of their vehicle in September 2002. The Canadian Arrow team has even launched a call for astronaut applicants, and rolled a mockup of their two-stage X-Prize vehicle into New York City's Rockefeller Center last April.

Starchaser officials said they expect to make their first manned Thunderbird launch in October 2004.