For the first time in the
history of space exploration, a private company is offering the scientific community, governments and companies a ride aboard a spacecraft for their experiments or instruments at insured, published, fixed prices.

SpaceDev, (www.SpaceDev.Com) the world’s first commercial space
exploration company, intends to launch the first private spacecraft to
land on a near earth asteroid for the purpose of collecting scientific
data and to stake a claim to establish private property rights in space.

The spacecraft, Near Earth Asteroid Prospector (NEAP), first in a series
of SpaceDev Space Prospectors, will carry three of its own instruments to
analyze its asteroids size, and determine its composition and value. In
addition to these, space is available for up to seven additional
experiments or instruments of which four are canisters for instruments or
experiments to be deployed into sun orbit during the mission or to the
surface of the SpaceDev asteroid. On the first mission, one canister will
contain the NEAP alpha proton X-ray spectrometer which will be used to
determine the elemental composition of the asteroid surface, leaving three
canisters available to carry customer experiments or nano-rovers.

“Until today, scientists, universities, companies and governments have had
one avenue to space-the government. NEAP is the new spacecraft on the
launchpad, and its science costs only one-fourth what a recent government
mission costs,” said James W. Benson, Chairman, SpaceDev.

“This unique opportunity to use a private spacecraft offers these
customers inexpensive access to space on short notice and also offers
quick turn around on experiment results-results in approximately half the
time of current missions. Furthermore, the mission represents minimal risk
to the customer, because customer’s instruments are fully insured against
launch failure,” said Benson.

NEAP intends to launch between mid 1999 and mid 2000, with flight time
estimated at between nine and fifteen months. Potential target asteroids
include 1993 BX3 and 1996 FO3.

Construction and testing of NEAP will begin during the first quarter of
1998 and will take approximately 18 months to complete. SpaceDev is a
public company (OTC:PSDM) specializing in private space missions and
consulting.

Full details of the Announcement of Opportunity are available on the SpaceDev Website