Ansari X Prize

Ansari X Prize
The winning spaceplane SpaceShipOne being carried below its launch vehicle White Knight
Awarded for	"build and launch a spacecraft capable of carrying three people to 100 kilometers above the Earth's surface, twice within two weeks"[1]
Country	Worldwide
Presented by	X PRIZE Foundation
Reward(s)	US$10 million[1]
Last awarded	October 4, 2004
Winner	Scaled Composites
Website	ansari.xprize.org

The Ansari X Prize was a space competition in which the X Prize Foundation offered a US$10,000,000 prize for the first non-government organization to launch a reusable crewed spacecraft into space twice within two weeks. It was modeled after early 20th-century aviation prizes, and aimed to spur development of low-cost spaceflight.^[1]

Created in May 1996 and initially called just the "X Prize", it was renamed the "Ansari X Prize" on May 6, 2004, following a multimillion-dollar donation from entrepreneurs Anousheh Ansari and Amir Ansari.

The prize was won on October 4, 2004, the 47th anniversary of the Sputnik 1 launch, by the Tier One project designed by Burt Rutan and financed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, using the experimental spaceplane SpaceShipOne. $10 million was awarded to the winner, and more than $100 million was invested in new technologies in pursuit of the prize.^[1]

Several other X Prizes have since been announced by the X Prize Foundation, promoting further development in space exploration and other technological fields.