MOJAVE, CALIFORNIA - A privately
built and financed rocketship departed here today, headed for the first run
at back-to-back flights to win the $10 million Ansari X Prize.
"Woohoo!" said Erik Lindbergh,
grandson of famous flyer Charles Lindbergh, while SpaceShipOne soared overhead
still attached to its White Knight carrier plane. Erik Lindbergh is on the board
of the X Prize.
The $10 million X Prize
goes to the first privately built vehicle that can haul a pilot and two passengers
to the edge of space, then repeat the feat within two weeks.
SpaceShipOne is under the
controls of a single pilot, but is weighted as if three people were aboard.
For the record setting pair of flights, the vehicle will be boosted by a larger,
stronger engine than that used for its last piloted flight on June 21.
If today's flight is successful,
SpaceShipOne must then repeat the feat by Oct. 13.
Slung underneath the White
Knight carrier aircraft, SpaceShipOne and its pilot, Mike Melvill, headed down
the runway and lifted off to the cheers of thousands of gathered well-wishers.
In attendance were film directors John Landis and James Cameron, as well as
entrepreneur Elon Musk, astronaut William Readdy, and NASA chief Sean O'Keefe.
Target in the sky
The joined vehicles will
now begin a slow spiraling ascent high above the desert landscape. When all
is ready for the push to space, the White Knight will release SpaceShipOne.
The vehicle will glide free for a few seconds before Melvill ignites the vehicle's
hybrid rocket motor.
SpaceShipOne's target in
the sky is 62.5 miles (100 kilometers) altitude - a sky-high goal required by
the X Prize Foundation of St. Louis, Missouri in order to vie for the cash prize.
The altitude is generally considered to be the threshold of space.
If the suborbital flight
today is successful, SpaceShipOne's design team, Scaled Composites based here
at the Mojave Spaceport, are ready to turn the vehicle around for reflight -
perhaps making the second rocket run five days later on Oct. 4.
Independent verification
methods
After reaching altitude,
the SpaceShipOne will glide back to the Mojave Spaceport.
Whether or not the vehicle
"made the grade" so to speak, will be verified by independent methods,
said X Prize Foundation head, Peter Diamandis, in a pre-flight interview with
SPACE.com.
At least three independent
methods, two radar tracking systems, and an onboard "gold box" will
be utilized to verify flight conditions of SpaceShipOne as it makes its suborbital
trek, Diamandis said.
More than a dozen teams
around the globe are building, testing, and flying hardware to compete for the
Ansari X Prize, an offer that expires at year's end. The X Prize Foundation
hopes to jump-start the space tourism industry through competition among entrepreneurs
and rocket experts.
-- SPACE.com's Anthony
Duignan-Cabrera and Robert Roy Britt contributed to this report.
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