View source for N-Prize

With the creation of some competitions for private-funded companies/projects
in the space domain a few years ago, Dr. Paul H. Dear thought about an other
competition open to imaginative people. The idea was
[http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/N-Prize brainstormed] and the competition was
finally created, along with strict [http://www.n-prize.com rules].

The goal of the competition is to launch from earth surface a very small
object into orbit. This satellite must not exceed 20 grams, and the difficult
thing is to be able to make this orbital insertion for a cost less than £1,000.
There are two sets of rules: the launch can be single use
(Single-Spent-to-orbit), like a rocket, and thus using the £1,000 for the full
price of the launch vehicle and the satellite. The other way is a reusable
launch vehicule (RV) to some extend, for example recovering the first stage of a
rocket or a Helium balloon. Everything that is recovered and reusable doesn't
count into the £1,000.

The pushed-into-orbit [10-20[g satellite has to be tracked by entrants on their
own. To be validated, proof must be established that the satellite has made at
least 9 orbits before re-entry.