$10m X prize to be won this year

[Tankus]

BBC

The competition is to place a three-person spaceship on to a suborbital trajectory - reaching an altitude of 100km - twice in two weeks.

The first team to make such a flight will win the multi-million-dollar prize - though in reality, the entrants are likely to have spent much more to make their attempt.

The craft must carry three-person crews

Burt Rutan's company, Scaled Composites, has already flown its spacecraft at altitudes exceeding 50,000ft (15,000m) and at supersonic speeds. Insiders speculate he could make a suborbital flight within a few months

Scaled composites....Burt Rutan

Our plan involves flight in a 3-place spaceship, initially attached to a turbojet launch aircraft while climbing for an hour to 50,000 feet, above 85% of the atmosphere. The spaceship then drops into gliding flight and fires its rocket motor while climbing steeply for more than a minute, reaching a speed of 2,500 mph. The ship coasts up to 100 km (62 miles) altitude, then falls back into the atmosphere. The coast and fall are under weightless conditions for more than three minutes. During weightless flight, the spaceship converts to a high-drag configuration to allow a safe, stable atmospheric entry. After the entry deceleration which takes more than a minute, the ship converts back to a conventional glider, allowing a leisurely 17 minute glide from 80,000 feet altitude down to a runway where a landing is made at lightplane speeds.

Close up of the Orbiter

[andsome]

Very interesting

[Tankus]

whoops sorry Alan ...I saw this on the afternoon news and posted without checking for previous posts

Any admin ...just delete this duplicate thread