SpaceShipOne is one flight away from clinching the Ansari X Prize, a $10 million award for the first privately developed manned rocket to reach space twice within 14 days.
If SpaceShipOne is successfully launched on California’s Mojave Desert today, it will beat Space Transport Corp., led by two Forks rocket engineers who are also trying to reach an altitude of at least 328,000 feet with a manned spacecraft.
Space Transport is planning a test launch later this month from the Cape Flattery area of the North Olympic Peninsula.
The St. Louis-based Ansari X Prize was founded in 1996 to kick-start private-sector development of rocket ships.
Major funding comes from the Ansari family of Dallas. More than two dozen teams around the world are trying to win the X Prize, but only SpaceShipOne has reached space.