Sponsorship European launch services company Arianespace’s US arm has become a sponsor of the X Prize Cup. The competition is being run by the X Prize Foundation, which offered the $10million Ansari X Prize won by Burt Rutan and Paul Allen’s suborbital SpaceShipOne. A percursor event, Countdown to X Prize Cup, will take place on 9 October at New Mexico’s Las Cruces airport. The first competition is expected to take place next October at the US state’s South West Regional Spaceport.