Aircraft

Formula One-like rocketplane races are to start next year in the latest move by the X Prize Foundation to spur a revolution in “personal spaceflight”. The Rocket Racing League (RRL), unveiled by X Prize founder Peter Diamandis, is planned to be a commercial success in its own right while advancing efforts to spur investment and innovation among entrepreneurial space firms.

Modelled on heavily sponsored Nascar motor racing, the rocketplane races will be staged across the USA from October next year. XCor Aerospace is to supply the rocket engine and kitplane manufacturer Velocity will provide the airframe for the first-generation Mk1 X-Racers, each costing around $1 million, which will be owned and flown by individual racing teams.

But some potential beneficiaries are concerned. “Will people really get excited about the rocket races?” asks Dan Robinson, president of High Altitude Research, a panellist at last week’s Personal Spaceflight Symposium in Las Cruces, New Mexico, which was organised by the X Prize Foundation.

Diamandis says the racing league is an offshoot of plans for the X Prize Cup, an annual event staged for the first time on 9 October in Las Cruces. The ultimate goal is to race an emerging group of suborbital spacecraft after 2009. Meanwhile, the low-altitude rocket races are intended to maintain the momentum gained last year when the Scaled Composites SpaceShipOne won the $10 million Ansari X Prize for manned suborbital flight.

The inaugural race in 2006 will involve four or five aircraft. This will start an annual series of 10-15 races, culminating in finals at Las Cruces. The RRL is to build 10-15 Mk1 X-Racers before introducing the Mk2, and expects the racing league to stimulate development in rocket engines. The racecourse will be 3.2km (2 miles) long, 1.6km wide and 5,000ft (1,520m) high.

XCor’s EZ-Rocket testbed has become the prototype for the Mk1 X-Racer, and will be re-engined with a restartable liquid oxygen/kerosene rocket motor. The 1,500lb-thrust (6.7kN) engine will provide 4min of intermittent boost, pushing the 900kg (2,000lb) X-Racer to 280kt (515km/h).

STEPHEN TRIMBLE/GRAHAM WARWICK/ WASHINGTON DC