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SpaceShipOne: Monday Launch Is On
After a day spent reviewing its spectacular but wild spaceflight Wednesday, aerospace visionary Burt Rutan's team is sticking to its plan to try to capture the Ansari X Prize with a second launch on Monday. X Prize media representative Ian Murphy said Rutan notified competition officials late Thursday afternoon that his American Mojave Aerospace squad will send its SpaceShipOne aloft as planned to take the $10 million jackpot. Rutan picked the date, Oct. 4, because it's the anniversary of the 1957 launch of the Soviet Union's Sputnik I, the flight that marked the dawn of the space age. Under the X Prize rules, the American Mojave team has until 8:34 a.m. and 4 seconds PDT on Oct. 13 to complete its second flight. That's precisely two weeks after SpaceShipOne landed Wednesday.[more] It should occur between 9:00 - 10:30 EST as the winds die down in the Mojave around this time. The Discovery Science Channel has advertised that they will be covering the event from 9:00 EST on. Posted by: .com 2004-10-04 |
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