spacetoday.net: da Vinci delays X Prize launch

Posted: Fri, Sep 24, 2004, 2:36 PM ET (1836 GMT)
Wild Fire suborbital RLV illustration (da Vinci Project)

The da Vinci Project, a Canadian entrant in the Ansari X Prize competition, has delayed a planned October 2 launch of its Wild Fire spacecraft, project officials announced late Thursday. In a brief news release, the project said that the "availability of a few key components and their integration into the overall space flight program" was a contributing factor to the delay. No new launch date has been announced, although an official with the airport in Kindersley, Saskatchewan, where the launch was to take place, told SPACE.com the delay would be would be several days to a week. The Wild Fire spacecraft is carried aloft by a balloon to an altitude of 24,000 meters, where it fires a rocket engine to propel the spacecraft on a suborbital trajectory, parachuting back to Earth. The delay clears the way for SpaceShipOne, the suborbital vehicle built by Scaled Composites, to win the prize: its first prize qualification flight is planned for September 29 from Mojave Airport in California, with a second as early as October 4. The da Vinci team had positioned itself as a David to Scaled's Goliath; the project had not even raised enough money for a flight until it signed a sponsorship agreement with an online casino last month and officially changed its name to "Golden Palace.com Space Program Powered by the da Vinci Project."