First Canadian team joins race for the X-Prize; plans to launch rocket from the world’s largest hot-air balloon


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	Canadian Team Joins Race For X-Prize By Senior Business Correspondent posted: 07:00 pm ET 17 July 2000

Mary Motta

The first Canadian team has joined the race for the X PRIZE with plans to launch a rocket from the world’s largest hot-air balloon.

The da Vinci Project, a Toronto-based group of about 30 volunteers from Canada’s aerospace industry, was given the nod by The X PRIZE Foundation to compete for the $10 million prize Monday, June 17. The cash will be awarded to the first privately funded team to fly a three-person spacecraft 62 miles (100 kilometers) high on two flights within two weeks.

The plan was hatched by 41-year-old Brian Feeney, an industrial engineer in Toronto.

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"When the X PRIZE was first announced in 1996, I began working on (the project)," said Feeney, who will pilot the three-person Canadian spacecraft solo.

Brian Feeney, a Toronto-based industrial designer, will

pilot the spacecraft to a minimum altitude of 62 miles (100 km) to space.

Named after the Italian artist who designed the first aircraft, the project will cost about $5 million and will take about 18 months to complete, Feeney said. The group will begin constructing the vehicle this fall and has already test fired its engines and flown its flight systems, he said.

The 5,500-pound (2,500-kilogram) rocket will be tethered 1,000 feet (300 meters) below a 25-story hot-air balloon that will lift it to about 40,000 feet (12,190 meters).

The spacecraft’s 10,000 pound thrust engines will then fire the first stage to allow the rocket to fly at an angle away from the balloon. The rocket will then tilt into vertical flight until it ascends to the 62-mile destination at 2,650 m.p.h. (4,250 kilometers per hour).

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