SpaceShipOne, the first private manned spacecraft, is undergoing final preparations before its historic flight to the edge of space today.
The craft, built by aviation pioneer Burt Rutan, will be launched into the sky by its carrier, White Knight, then rocket upwards to 100km.
No private craft has ever been so high. In May, it reached 64km in a test flight, doubling its last best.
The attempt over California's Mojave Desert is due to launch at 6:30am.
Rutan and his team from his company, Scaled Composites, hope the flight will take them closer to winning the Ansari X-prize of US$10 million awarded to the first non-government, manned flight into space.
The as yet unnamed pilot will also rocket into the record books to become the first civilian to fly a spaceship out of Earth's atmosphere.
If the mission is a success, SpaceShipOne will attempt the X-prize at a later stage.
To beat 25 other teams to the X-prize, SpaceShipOne must reach 100km -- space's official boundary -- twice in two weeks with a crew of three.
When the X-prize is claimed, it could open up the skies to future tourist trips to the edge of space for those bored of the usual beach holiday.
Today's historic flight is being attempted early in the day because it is less likely to be very windy at that time and a lower Sun angle affords a better view.
High winds or cloudy skies could jeopardize the flight plans.
If the weather does behave, today's flight will see White Knight lift off from the runway in front of gathered crowds. SpaceShipOne will be carried by the craft to an altitude of 15km.
That should take an hour, after which SpaceShipOne will be unleashed into the skies.
It will glide very briefly before firing up its rocket for about 80 seconds. It will blast off to its target height of 100km in a vertical climb at Mach 3 (three times the speed of sound).
When it has reached its target altitude, the vehicle will change its wing configuration to allow for high drag, and will start to fall back towards Earth during which the pilot will be weightless.
At re-entry, the ship's special wing configuration will allow it to glide back down to Earth.
SPEAKING OUT: After Siranudh Scott’s allegations surfaced, celebrities and public figures took to social media to share their own experiences of sexual misconduct and abuse A high-profile alleged sexual abuse case within a wealthy Thai beer brewing family has prompted a wave of painful accounts from survivors of unconnected abuse in the conservative nation. Siranudh Scott, a member of the billionaire Thai family that founded the ubiquitous Singha beer brand, posted an emotional video this month accusing his elder brother Sunit of repeatedly abusing him when he was a teenager. Sunit, who is in his 30s, later denied the allegations in a video posted online, but Singha parent Boonrawd dismissed him from his executive role with the company on Tuesday last week. “I felt I needed to speak
A Hong Kong astronaut is to join a Chinese space mission for the first time as part of a three-person crew launching today, as Beijing edges closer to its goal of landing people on the moon. The Tiangong space station — crewed by teams of three astronauts that are typically rotated every six months — is the crown jewel of China’s space program, boosted by billions in state investment in a bid to catch up with the US and Russia. The Shenzhou-23 mission is to blast off at 11:08pm from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China, carrying three astronauts to
UPGRADED ALERT: The risk inside DR Congo is now considered ‘very high,’ while neighboring countries face a ‘high’ threat as the outbreak continues, the WHO said Ebola is spreading faster than responders can track it in eastern Congo, where health workers managed to follow up with barely one in five identified contacts in a single day. Authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) reported 83 confirmed infections, 746 suspected cases and 1,603 identified contacts as of Thursday, but health workers were able to follow up on only 342 contacts that day — about 21 percent of the total under monitoring — data released by the DR Congo Ministry of Public Health on Friday showed. The figures suggest the response is falling behind the outbreak itself,
SEEKING ORDER: Rodrigo Paz said that ‘anyone who wants to destroy the nation will have to deal with this president and the full force of the constitution’ Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz on Wednesday said that the nation was at a “breaking point” after nearly a month of protests that have caused shortages of food, fuel and medicine. Paz, who took office six months ago amid the worst economic crisis there in four decades, is battling a groundswell of fury over his policies. The political capital, La Paz, has been besieged by low-income workers and members of the indigenous majority calling for his resignation. “The country needs order and is reaching breaking point,” the 58-year-old said at a public event in La Paz, renewing his appeal for dialogue. On Tuesday, the Bolivian
RSS