TOP NEWS

• Congratulations Scaled Composites, Mike Melvill and Burt Rutan!
• Global Media Attention – Off the Charts!
• X PRIZE Supports NASA's Centennial Challenges Program
• Explorers' Club Flag Granted

TEAM NEWS

• Interorbital Systems
• Armadillo Aerospace
• Starchaser Industries
• daVinci Project
• HARC
• ARCA
• Space Transport Corporation
• Pablo De Leon and Associates

Dear ANSARI X PRIZE Supporters,

This has been an amazing month for space enthusiasts and X PRIZE supporters around the world. The historic flight of SpaceShipOne on June 21st has gone a long way towards our goal of changing the existing paradigm. Space travel is no longer just for governments and traditional government astronauts.

We all are looking forward to the success of additional teams, and the race towards the $10M ANSARI X PRIZE.

Best wishes,

Peter H. Diamandis
Chairman

TOP NEWS

Congratulations Scaled Composites, Mike Melvill and Burt Rutan!
SpaceShipOne made history as it soared more than 328,491 feet (100 km) above Earth's surface during its flight June 21, 2004. This accomplishment makes SpaceShipOne the first privately built and funded manned craft to fly into space.

The X PRIZE Foundation extended congratulations to the entire Scaled Composites' team, in particular Burt Rutan and Mike Melvill for achieving this tremendous milestone. We also thank Paul Allen for his willingness to help open this critical, but risky frontier. The entire X PRIZE organization looks forward to receiving Scaled Composites' 60-day notice indicating they are ready to make their attempt to win the $10 million purse. Once such notice is received, we will make the information publicly available.

As you may know, Scaled Composites' SpaceShipOne flight on June 21st was not a qualifying ANSARI X PRIZE flight because it only carried the one pilot, without the weight equivalent of two other individuals. This flight was a test flight in preparation for competition flight attempts later this year.

Global Media Attention – Off the Charts!
The global media attention around the SpaceShipOne flights was off the charts. The flight was covered on the front page of the top 100 papers in more than 20 countries around the world. This included coverage in the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Financial Times and USA Today to name a few. The www.xprize.org website registered over 300,000 unique visitors in June and more than 46 million hits.

X PRIZE Supports NASA's Centennial Challenges Program
On June 15-16, engineers and scientists from all corners of the space industry converged on the Washington, D.C. Hilton to discuss the idea of NASA-sponsored prizes at the Centennial Challenges workshop. The X PRIZE Foundation was well represented at the conference.

Dr. Peter Diamandis presented the story of the X PRIZE to the assembled audience. Vice President Erik Lindbergh shared the story of his famous grandfather, whose pursuit of the Orteig Prize led to an aviation revolution.

X PRIZE Foundation Exeuctive Director Gregg Maryniak chaired sessions on prizes for power beaming, lunar processing and future manned spaceflight prizes.

The timing of the workshop could not have been better: on the second day of the workshop, the President's Commission on Moon, Mars, and Beyond issued its long-awaited report, recommending that "Congress increase the potential for commercial opportunities related to the national space exploration vision... by creating significant monetary prizes for the accomplishment of space missions and/or technology developments."

Based on the input generated from the workshop, Centennial Challenges hopes to issue the initial round of competitions in the next few months, with purses of $250,000 or less. In the next fiscal year (2005), prizes of up to $20 million will follow.

Explorers' Club Flag Granted
The X PRIZE Foundation has been granted the honor of carrying The Explorers Club flag on the spacecraft that wins the ANSARI X PRIZE. This flag represents an impressive history of courage and accomplishment and has been carried on hundreds of expeditions by Club members since 1918 (www.explorers.org). The Explorers Club flag has been proudly flown from the depths of the ocean to the lunar surface demonstrating the spirit of exploration of the men and women who put it there. The weight of the Flag will be credited as payload/passenger ballast. The X PRIZE Foundation will coordinate with teams to place the Flag aboard all official attempts to win the prize. Credit for arranging his honor goes to X PRIZE Advisor Jonathan Conrad and Special Ops member Nick Skytland (pictured with Peter Diamandis).

TEAM NEWS

Interorbital Systems
The Solaris X three-person X PRIZE design has now been switched over to its original configuration as the upper stage of the Neptune-Solaris Orbital Spaceliner, a two-stage stack carrying an eight-person space tourism capsule. Interorbital Systems has been an advocate of orbital tourism and on-orbit human-presence activities since the company's founding in 1996. In a parallel project, Interorbital Systems is completing work on the third stage of a nanosatellite launch vehicle. IOS is competing to become the first purely private-sector rocket company to launch a privately funded satellite into orbit. www.interorbital.com

Armadillo Aerospace
Team Armadillo's decision to switch to a guide-vane vectored attitude control system has "met with spectacular success," according to team member Neil Milburn. Armadillo recently outfitted its sub-scale vehicle with jet vanes and wrote computer software that determines when to turn the vanes to control the direction of the thrust from its rocket engine. The vehicle was launched on June 16 from Armadillo's 100-acre test range, and "the boosted hop was absolutely mission perfect." The vehicle rocketed 130 feet into the air and then, using its engine thrust to slow the descent, softly landed only inches from the lift-off point. Also, according to Milburn, "Armadillo has been advised by the FAA that a request for a burn-time waiver on a series R&D flights at Southwest Regional Spaceport in New Mexico has been approved," allowing 120-second burn-time on their "boilerplate" vehicle.

> A video of the flight can be seen at this link.

www.armadilloaerospace.com

Starchaser Industries
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson recently announced that UK-based Starchaser Industries, a contender for the $10 million dollar ANSARI X PRIZE, plans to open offices in Las Cruces, NM and begin launch operations from the nearby Southwest Regional Spaceport (SRS) as early as 2006. "When we announced that New Mexico won the bid to host the X PRIZE Cup, we promised that economic opportunities and high wage jobs would follow. I'm pleased that we are seeing those opportunities begin to materialize so quickly," said Governor Richardson.

Starchaser Industries is currently working towards a full-scale test firing of its Churchill Mk III 147 KN (33,000 lb) thrust liquid rocket engine, and plans to launch its "Thunderstar" Reusable Launch Vehicle within the next 18 months. Starchaser has thus far successfully flown 14 of its 16 unmanned launches— including the last seven consecutive test launches. www.starchaser.co.uk

da Vinci Project
Canadian da Vinci Project Team is set to move into its new location at Downsview Park in North West Toronto. In the 1920's fabric aircraft were built at this location, along with Canada's first satellite in 1962. Downsview Park and its buildings were formerly a military base and today are part of an area also used by Bombardier Aerospace. Their new facility faces an active runway that is owned and operated by Bombardier. Across the driveway from da Vinci's new building is the Toronto Aviation Museum, the original home of The de Havilland Aircraft of Canada Ltd., one of Canada's most successful aircraft manufacturers. da Vinci plans to complete its move before the end of June so that it can continue uninterrupted development and testing work on its ANSARI X PRIZE vehicle, "Wildfire." www.davinciproject.com

HARC
The Alabama-based HARC Team is developing and following a new business model based on Escape Tower Rocket Motor (ETRoM) driven capsule launching. Having completed the final design of the ETRoM , HARC has begun construction on the stand-alone capsule systems (SACS). The ETRoM driven SACS is expected to produce the Team's first rocket business profit center. In order to help validate capsule stability associated with capsule geometry, winds, tip-off, etc., HARC designed and constructed a sub-scale flight model SACS and ETRoM. These systems are being used for flight-testing that produces real results, instead of relying solely on simulations. The flight model has offered HARC the ability to fly frequently with minimal operational costs. Utilizing state of the art fuel regression techniques, according to Team Leader Don Robinson, "HARC was able to achieve over 7000 pounds of thrust in a motor that is only 10 inches in diameter by 36 inches long. The beauty of this motor system is that it is extremely low cost, efficient, and easy to reload for successive flights." www.harcspace.com

ARCA
ARCA Team Leader Dumitru Popescu announced that his ANSARI X PRIZE demonstrator vehicle is moving forward to the flight test stage. According to the team's June 5 press release, the "World's first composite materials reusable monopropellant rocket engine will be flight tested in July on board the Demonstrator 2-B rocket. The first flight will be made below 10 km, mainly because of the launch site restrictions." ARCA plans for this technology to be used on the ORIZONT, its ANSARI X PRIZE vehicle, with manned flights starting with the next year. www.arcaspace.ro

Space Transport Corporation
Forks, WA-based Space Transport Corporation has had their Rubicon ANSARI X PRIZE vehicle on display locally and in Seattle at The Museum of Flight during the month of June. The 22-foot tall Rubicon, complete with orange nosecone, guidance system and seven-engine rocket cluster (unfueled), was mounted in the guide rails of STC's mobile launch trailer. STC has launched multiple three-stage rockets in the past two months, one reaching 50 kilometers. STC expects to launch Rubicon to 15,000 feet on its maiden flight in mid-July from a location on the Olympic Peninsula near Forks. www.space-transport.com

Pablo De Leon and Associates
The Argentinian ANSARI X PRIZE entry, is working to complete the first test of their escape system. This escape system is designed to lift the crew capsule to safety in case of malfunction of the main launch vehicle. The escape system is basically three solid-propellant rockets attached to a tower at 120 degrees each, on top of the capsule. In the test, the escape rockets will ignite and lift the capsule to a safe distance from the launch rocket. The test will be performed in the Province of Buenos Aires, in a secure test area. If successful, this test will allow De Leon to continue development and ensure safer flights tests. www.pablodeleon.com/