Dot-com e-tailer heads for the stratosphere

This morning saw the successful first launch for 'Nova', Britain's independent space explorer.

Amongst the project's investors is IT hardware e-tailer, Dabs.com.

The rocket took off exactly as planned and rose to a height in excess of 5,000 feet. The mission was unmanned and designed purely to test the rocket.

Adrienne Bennett, liaison officer for Starchaser Industries, the company behind the rocket, said: "The rocket did everything it was meant to do - everything worked perfectly."

Now Starchaser Industries says it will have three men in space by 2003.

'Nova' is the third prototype from Starchaser and is 11 metres tall and weighs 747 kilograms. It can accelerate to 500 miles an hour in under six seconds.

Starchaser aims to claim the $10m US Xprize by being the first commercial organisation to get people into space.

The company says it will fire another rocket in spring 2002 far higher than today's test flight. From there it will start trialling manned flights.

While today's test was successful, Starchaser will have to work much harder to claim the prize. To reach space a rocket needs to reach a height of at least 62 miles or 330,000 feet, over 54 times the height of today's test.