*The following is archival content from 2003, hosted on the original X PRIZE website, to maintain authenticity.

Propulsion: Liquid Oxygen/Liquid Methane Rocket Ship Name: Advent Team Leader: James Akkerman Location: Water, Vertical Launch: Horizontal on runway (1st stage); Air launch (2nd stage) Landing: Water, Horizontal, Unpowered Team Overview

Quote from James Akkerman

"To the start-up company, the X PRIZE provides encouragement with publicity, financial opportunity and the romance of competition. People are talking about the ten million dollar race into space. It's in the news, on TV, in the newspapers, in magazines and all over the Internet. Potential investors see it. The man in the street sees it. Soon everyone is going to realize that the vast demand for low cost, high speed intercontinental transportation can be served with rockets spawned by the X PRIZE and that industry will develop quickly."

Flight Sequence

The Advent spacecraft is launched vertically from water and landed horizontally like a sea plane. It is a winged rocket that is designed to glide down to the ocean surface for a safe, controlled landing. (Early designs of the Advent system included capacity for six passengers, but the design has since reduced the size and capacity to the basic X PRIZE requirements.) The Advent vehicle is mechanically much simpler than an airliner because it has fewer components, a shorter run time and very robust mechanical parts.

The Advent vehicle requires only seven signals to totally control the propulsion system: two for fill of the propellant tanks, two for pressurization of the propellants; two for vent of the pressurization, and one for the on/off of the engine. Pitch and roll will be the only flight control functions and a signal to abort the passenger may be added. The mission will be further controlled by data and switches added into the passenger module for trajectory control and landing.

After notification from air traffic control that a launch corridor has been cleared, the engine on the Advent vehicle is started. The vehicle immediately begins to rise out of the water. The engine exhaust forms a large bubble in the water below. The engine reaches maximum thrust within a couple of seconds, about the same time the vehicle clears the water. The large bubble will float to the water surface and generate a sizable wave emanating in all directions. The engine will run for about 97 seconds and the vehicle and passengers will experience an acceleration force of approximately 4.6 G.

Approximately 97 seconds into the flight, when the vehicle is at an altitude of approximately 145,000 feet and traveling approximately 3,600 feet per second (2,500 miles per hour), the engine will stop firing. The vehicle will then coast up to space and the crew and passengers will begin to experience microgravity conditions.