X Prize setback.Rubicon 1 explodes!

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X Prize setback

QUEETS, Wash. -- A team taking a low-budget stab at the $10-million US Ansari X Prize for private manned spaceflight suffered a setback yesterday, when their rocket malfunctioned and exploded. No one was hurt in the test of the Rubicon 1. The seven-metre-long, 96-cm-diameter spacecraft held three dummies simulating the weight of astronauts. The rocket, which crashed after its parachute failed to deploy, will have to be completely rebuilt, said Eric Meier, a mechanical engineer and co-founder of Space Transport Corp. Meier and partner Phillip Storm had hoped to reach supersonic speeds and an altitude of 6,000 metres in yesterday's flight, but Meier seemed undeterred by the failure.
"We need to raise some more money ... fix our problems and launch another low-altitude flight as soon as possible," Meier said. The X Prize is promised to the first group to successfully launch a privately financed, reusable craft that makes a suborbital flight 100 km high twice within two weeks while carrying a pilot and weight equivalent to two other people.

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