From Wired News: "Aerospace pioneer Burt Rutan announced at a press conference at the Santa Monica Airport on Tuesday that his SpaceShipOne team will make a bid to win the $10 million Ansari X Prize with flights between late September and mid-October from Mojave, California. Rutan designed SpaceShipOne with $20 million or more in backing from Microsoft co-founder and billionaire Paul Allen. The ship became the first privately financed manned vehicle to reach space during its suborbital test flight on June 21.

"We have notified the X Prize organization that we'll make our first X Prize flight on Sept. 29 -- of this year," Rutan said. To win the prize, competitors must make two flights with a three-person craft to suborbital space -- 100 kilometers above the Earth -- in two weeks. Rutan said his team, officially dubbed American Mojave Aerospace Ventures, is planning three flights in the two-week prize window ending Oct. 13."