New Mexico Tourism | Enjoy

Events: All American Futurity, Great American Duck Race, Hatch Chili Festival, Las Cruces International Mariachi Conference, La Viña Harvest Festival, New Mexico Wine Festival, Santa Fe Film Festival, Santa Fe Wine & Chile Festival, The Thirsty Ear Festival, The Whole Enchilada Fiesta, Wine and Chile War Festival, X Prize Cup

X Prize Cup

The Wirefly X PRIZE Cup is the result of a partnership between the X PRIZE Foundation and the State of New Mexico that began in 2004 with plans to build the world's first true rocket festival.

The first iteration of that vision took place in the fall of 2005 and was called Countdown to the X PRIZE Cup. The event featured a live static engine firing, the first major public demonstration of XCOR's E-Z Rocket flown by Space Shuttle astronaut Rick Searfoss, a demonstration by Armadillo Aerospace of their vertical take-off vehicle, and dozens of scale ground displays, including models of some of the original Ansari X PRIZE competitors, and the Prize winner, Spaceship One.

The 2006 Wirefly X PRIZE Cup focused on humanity's first new steps toward our next giant leap back to the moon. It included three classes of rockets, two official prize competitions with purse totals from NASA in excess of $2.5 million, the Space Elevator Games, with a half-million dollar prize purse, and a multi-camera webcast to bring the event and New Mexico to the world with the goal of bringing the world to New Mexico for future Cups.

Prompted by the success of its annual spaceflight showcase events in the past two years, the X PRIZE Foundation, Holloman Air Force Base and the State of New Mexico announced a significant expansion of this year's Wirefly X PRIZE Cup, which will be held at Holloman Air Force Base and Las Cruces, N.M.

The event will commence with a two-day symposium at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces followed a first-ever combined Air and Space show at Holloman Air Force Base in the city of Alamogordo. The combined Air and Space Show marks a significant program expansion from the previous year, as well as an additional venue for Wirefly X Prize Cup activities. The event will feature more performances, presentations and displays than ever before in taking advantage of existing launch pads, staging areas, facilities, transportation, parking and other amenities at the base.

X PRIZE Foundation
Phone (310)582-5903
space.xprize.org