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$10 million X Prize WON!
SpaceShipOne Does It!
MOJAVE DESERT, California (CNN) -- SpaceShipOne lifted off from a runway in the Mojave Desert in California, at 10:12 a.m. ET Wednesday on its quest to become the winner of the $10 million Ansari X Prize.
The revolutionary spacecraft, the first privately financed vehicle to send humans into space, is making its first of two qualifying flights in order to claim the prize.
The plane White Knight will carry SpaceShipOne, attached beneath it, to about 50,000 feet where the spacecraft will detach and rocket into space.
SpaceShipOne must launch three people, or their weight equivalent, to space twice within two weeks. The craft carried only the pilot, Mike Melvill, on Wednesday's flight.
The second flight, which must reach an altitude of 100 kilometers, is scheduled for October 4.
Burt Rutan of Scaled Composites designed and tested the rocket during a June 21 suborbital flight.
Despite control system malfunctions, the flight was a success and made Melvill, 63, the first person to earn his astronaut wings aboard a private spacecraft.
Melvill told reporters he had "a hell of a view from 62 miles."
"The colors were pretty staggering from up there," he said. "It's an awesome thing to see. You can see the curvature of the Earth."
The aerodynamics of SpaceShipOne were slightly modified and the power of its engine was increased for this flight.
Rutan said the first spaceflight had brought the world closer to realizing his long-held dream of easy access to space.
"Our hope is that this will be a benchmark ... for a lot more people to not only have fun but to reap the benefits that we believe might be there," said Rutan.
SpaceShipOne is competing with more than two dozen other teams for the X Prize. The only one to challenge SpaceShipOne to the finish line, the da Vinci project of Canada, recently canceled its October 2 flight for a lack of crucial components. The team said its balloon-launched spacecraft would still make an attempt.
The Ansari X Prize -- modeled off aviation awards at the beginning of the 20th century -- is designed to spur the private sector into building a space tourism industry.
Market studies suggest there may be a multibillion demand for such flights to the edge of space and, eventually, into orbit around the Earth. At least one entrepreneur is plunging headfirst into the businesses.
Virgin Atlantic Airways founder Richard Branson announced on Monday that he would invest $25 million in a new space venture, to be called Virgin Galactic. The project will license Scaled Composite's SpaceShipOne technology for commercial suborbital flights starting at about $200,000. He expects it could fly 3,000 people within five years.
"The development will also allow every country in the world to have their own astronauts rather than the privileged few," he said.
Today's flight will take off from a remote airstrip in the Mojave Desert. It is the only civilian test flight center and just one of a handful of spaceports.
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