In a flawless mission, SpaceShipOne, piloted by former US navy test pilot Brian Binnie, also smashed the sub-orbital flight altitude record, reaching 367,442 feet (69.6 miles/112 kilometers), judges announced.

"We have truly entered a new space age," said US astronaut Rick Searfoss, chief judge of the 10-million-dollar Ansari X Prize, declaring SpaceShipOne the winner of the purse designed to spawn commercial space travel.

"It's an age that will be defined by the art of the impossible, not by what is politically possible," he said, adding that the US government space programme had "in many respects lost its way."

US President George W. Bush called the spacecraft's designer, aviation pioneer Burt Rutan and his team to congratulate them on their feat, organisers said.

"This is a historic day," said Marion Blakey, head of the Federal Aviation Administration as awarded Binnie his astonaut wings after he glided back into California's Mojave desert to the cheers of thousands.

The stubby, winged SpaceShipOne had "opened a new frontier in commercial human space travel" that will revolutionise both space and earthly transport, Blakey said.

During its nearly 90-minute flight that took it to the edge of space, the craft reached speeds of up to 3,500 kilometers (2,187 miles) per hour before punching through the Earth's atmosphere.

It broke the altitude record for sub-orbital flight of 354,200 feetmiles/108 kilometers) set by the X-15 rocket plane 41 years ago.

"We blew the X-15 away," said Peter Diamandis, president of the X Prize Foundation that will award the SpaceShipOne team a cheque for 10 million dollars and a trophy at ceremony in St. Louis on November 6.

As SpaceShipOne touched down, Rutan stood alongside British tycoon Richard Branson and Diamandis leaping for joy and cheering.

Branson, owner of the Virgin Atlantic airline, last week announced plans to join the private space race using a craft based on SpaceShipOne, offering passengers space jaunts for about 200,000 dollars a trip.

To win the X Prize, the same reusable manned spacecraft needed to make two journeys into space within two weeks while carrying the equivalent weight of two passengers.

Rutan was jubilant, saying he could hardly believe he and his Mojave Aerospace Ventures team had won the prize after flying just six powered flights, including three space flights, in SpaceShipOne.

Long an outspoken adversary of the mainstream space industry and NASA, Rutan cocked a victorious snoot at his rivals, deriding what he called the "Boeings, the Lockheeds, the naysayers in Houston."

"I have a hell of lot bigger goal than they do," he said vowing to develop a private commercial spacecraft for Branson that would be "at least 100 times safer than anything that is ever flown into space."

Pilot Binnie, 51, described the flight that earned him his astronaut's wings as a "dream come true," revealing that he floated a model of SpaceShipOne in its cockpit as he became weightless for about four minutes.

During the first leg of its X Prize bid on Wednesday, SpaceShipOne -- piloted by Mike Melville, who flew its first space flight on June 21 -- the plane rolled 29 times, corkscrewing through the sky and striking horror into the hearts of onlookers.

But there were no problems this time and Binnie managed to ignite the rocket engine for a total of 84 seconds, five seconds more than Melvill.

"So it wasn't as much fun as Mike's flight, but we got a little bit higher and it was enjoyable," Binnie said.

The rocketship blasted into space after separating from the underbelly of its mother plane, White Knight, at around 46,000-feet (13,800 meters) and glided back to Earth about half an hour later.

A galaxy of celebrities braved the desert to witness the flight, including "Star Trek" actor William Shatner, music mogul Quincy Jones, jazz musician Herbie Hancock and Kiss rock group singer Gene Simmons.

On Monday, one of SpaceShipOne's sponsors, softdrink maker 7 UP, announced it would offer consumers a prize of the first free tickets to space in a competition that has yet to be finalised.

Rutan selected October 4 to coincide with the 47th anniversary of the 1957 launch of the Soviet Union's first satellite, Sputnik I, which sparked the original space race between Moscow and Washington.

The X Prize, funded by private donors, was established in 1996 and modelled on the 25,000-dollar Orteig prize that aviator Charles Lindbergh won when he became the first solo pilot to cross the Atlantic in 1927, spurring commercial air travel.

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