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X Prize Gets Four New Competitors
By Brian Berger
Space News Staff Writer
posted: 01:49 pm ET
28 January 2003
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WASHINGTON Four new teams have joined the hunt for the $10 million check that the X Prize Foundation plans to award to the first successful launch and re-launch of a vehicle capable of taking three passengers on a sub-orbital trip into spaceWASHINGTON Four new teams have joined the hunt for the $10 million check that the X Prize Foundation plans to award to the first successful launch and re-launch of a vehicle capable of taking three passengers on a sub-orbital trip into space. Three new American teams and an Israeli team bring the total number of X Prize entrants to 24. The X Prize Foundation says it will award $10 million to the first team to build and fly a three-person reusable spacecraft to an altitude of 100 kilometers twice within two weeks. X Prize officials said they expect to award the prize money within the next year or two. The X Prize was established in 1995 to encourage development of reusable launch vehicles capable of carrying humans into space. None of the teams have attempted a qualifying launch. The new teams are: American Astronautics Corp. an Oceanside, Calif.-based outfit, is working on a vertically launched rocket they are calling the Spirit of Liberty. Aerospace Technologies staffed by five veterans of the Israeli armed forces, the team is designing a balloon-launched rocket. Interorbital Systems A Mojave, Calif.-based company that hopes to win the X Prize using the orbiter stage of the two-stage Neptune-Solaris Space Liner it has in development. Micro-Space, Inc. a Denver-based firm working on a rocket-powered vertical takeoff vehicle dubbed the Crusader X.
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