by Alan Breakstone


The Ansari X-Prize Foundation announced today that the American Mojave Aerospace Ventures, LLC Team (a partnership of Paul G. Allen with Burt Rutan and his team at Scaled Composites) will attempt to win the Ansari X-Prize in September and October. Their first SpaceShipOne flight is scheduled for September 29th, 2004, at the Mojave Airport Civilian Aerospace Test Center in Mojave, California. To win the $10 million prize, SpaceShipOne will need to make a second flight within two weeks, by October 13th, 2004.

SpaceShipOne made its historic first flight into space June 21, 2004. It is so far the only X-Prize vehicle that is actually space qualified.

The Foundation also announced that the da Vinci Project Team, based in Toronto, Canada, will roll-out its Wild Fire vehicle to the public on Thursday, Aug 5th, 2004. The debut of the balloon-launched rocket will be at the Downsview Airport in Toronto. The da Vinci Project Team intends to pursue its own X-Prize attempts this Fall. No dates have been announced, however.

At the announcement in California, Dr. Peter H. Diamandis, Chairman and Founder of the Ansari X-Prize Foundation, said, "When the Ansari X-Prize competition is won, it will herald the start of a new renaissance of spaceflight in which the general public will have their chance to fly next."

The announcement is posted on the Ansari X-Prize website, which was also heavily modified today. Among the changes is a link to buy Ansari X-Prize launch event tickets and products.