spacetoday.net: X Prize Cup plans announced

Posted: Thu, Apr 14, 2005, 6:24 AM ET (1024 GMT)
The state of New Mexico will host the first X Prize Cup exhibition this October, the state and prize foundation officials announced Wednesday. The inaugural event is scheduled for October 4-9 at Las Cruces International Airport and other locations in the southern part of the state. The event will feature "demonstration flights" of several potential prize contenders, although the statement didn't make it clear if any of these flights will be actual suborbital spaceflights. Other aspects of the event include flights by Zero-G's "G-Force One" aircraft, which simulates weightlessness for brief periods; as well as educational events and static displays of potential cup competitors. The X Prize Foundation established the Cup as a follow-on to the original prize competition, which was won by SpaceShipOne last fall. Future Cup events, starting at White Sands Missile Range in 2006 and slated to move to a new commercial spaceport in southern New Mexico by 2008, will feature actual flight competitions among suborbital vehicles in a number of categories.