NEW SPIRIT OF ST. LOUISSM CUP

The long-term purpose of The X Prize Foundation is to encourage the development of commercial space vehicles for the purpose of conducting commercial activities including tourism, telecommunications, and access to the bountiful resources of space. These vehicles will evolve from suborbital to orbital systems and eventually will include craft which can go beyond low Earth orbit. To reach these performance goals, the Foundation is creating the NEW SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS Cup --a biennial competition designed to continue the improvement of space transportation vehicle technology initiated by the first X Prize competition.

The X Prize Foundation expects that the $10 million X Prize will attract numerous competitors on a worldwide basis. Once the initial competition is won, teams with completed space vehicle technology will have an interest in showcasing and proving their designs in future competitions. Modeled after the America's Cup - by providing consecutive competitions aimed at improving performance - the NEW SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS Cup will give those teams that did not win the first X Prize another opportunity to succeed.

The first Cup competition will take place the year after the $10 million X Prize is claimed. The Cup competition will take place every two years thereafter.

The winning competitor will need to demonstrate a vehicle which provides the best cost-performance for the purpose of space tourism. Detailed rules for the Cup (to be announced in the future) will assign points to such factors as number of passengers carried, time between reflights and altitude achieved. In this manner, designs which maximize altitude and number of passengers and minimize the cost of flight and ground operations will be encouraged.



X PRIZE SM and NEW SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS SM are service marks of The X PRIZE Foundation, Inc.