CAPE CANAVERAL, FL -- The race to loft a three-personspaceship on a suborbital flight twice in two weeks will be won by the end ofthe summer, the competitions founder said Wednesday.

Peter Diamandis, chairman of the international X Prizecompetition to build and launch reusable spaceships, announced that the racewill most likely be won in mere months.

We do expect the X Prize to be captured within three tofive months, Diamandis said during a presentation here before the 41^stSpace Congress.

The X Prize is a competition between 27 teams across sevencountries to design, build and develop a craft capable of launching threepeople 62.5 miles (100 kilometers) into space, returning them safely, thenrepeating the feat with the same vehicle within two weeks. The first team tomake such a flight wins a $10 million purse, though the entrants have spentmore than $50 million to develop their vehicles.

So far, the leader appears to be SpaceShipOne, an entryled by aerospace engineer Burt Rutan and his company Scaled Composites. With alaunch license already in hand, and several test flights under his belt, Rutanappears poised to snag the X Prize. But Diamandis added that other teams arealso well on their way, including the Canadian Da Vinci team headed by BrianFeeney, which has secured a launch license in Canada.

We are already looking beyond the X Prize, said Pablo DeLeon, leader of his own X Prize team based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, whoconceded that his team is not ready to win the competition. The team plans toconduct two launch tests with a half-size scale of their vehicle in the fall,he added.

De Leon told SPACE.com he and his teammates are lookingforward to the X Prize Cup, an annual, post-X Prize meeting of privatespacefarers to compete for the fastest launch turnaround, highest altitude,most passengers in a single launch, total passengers within two weeks, andfastest flight.

But to conduct any private launch competition, the X PrizeFoundation -- the St. Louis, Missouri-based group running the X Prize contest --needs a spaceport. In January, the X Prize Foundation announced a request forproposals from a number of states developing commercial spaceports, includingOklahoma, New Mexico, Texas and California.

Diamandis said the foundation has narrowed the choices downto New Mexico or Florida -- home to NASAs Kennedy Space Center and launchinggrounds for the space shuttle and other NASA, U.S. Air Force and commercialmissions -- and New Mexico.

We will be making a decision and announcing it in the nextmonth or so, he added.

De Leon said his money is on New Mexico winning the bid for spaceport. The southwestern state recently promised $9 million in funds to develop the infrastructure and marketing necessary for an X Prize spaceport, he told SPACE.com .