Posted: Fri, Sep 19, 2003, 11:53 AM ET (1553 GMT)
Scaled Composites, developers of the SpaceShipOne (SS1) reusable suborbital spacecraft, announced Thursday that they had selected SpaceDev to provide the propulsion system for the vehicle. SpaceDev was in competition with another company, Environmental Aeroscience Corporation (eAc), to build the hybrid propellant engine that will be used to boost SS1 onto a suborbital trajectory once it its released from its White Knight carrier aircraft. The value of the contract was not announced. Both SpaceDev and eAc had successfully tested their versions of the engine, using nitrous oxide and hydroxy-terminated polybutadiene (HTPB), or rubber, as propellants. Scaled Composites did not specify when powered flights of SS1 would begin, other than to say that it "now looks forward to entering into the historic phase of private manned space flight." There had been rumors that Scaled would attempt a complete suborbital flight of the spacecraft by mid-December, the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers' historic flight.

Related Links:

•  SpaceDev press release
•  SPACE.com article
•  Scaled Composites SS1 information