After a century at the heart of the aviation industry, Kansas is about to help make history again.

The Global Flyer — an airplane designed by Burt Rutan, father of SpaceShip One — will use a Salina airstrip as the launching point in January for its first-ever flight: a solo, non-stop flight around the world without refueling.

The New York Times reported Tuesday that Salina is the probable launching point for the project. Officials with the Global Flyer project did not return calls Tuesday, and the Salina Municipal Airport declined comment.

But airport officials invited reporters to a 10 a.m. Wednesday news conference to “to announce an aerospace event of historic proportions and international importance.”

Rutan designed SpaceShip One, which earlier this year became the first privately funded craft to achieve spaceflight. Rutan also designed Voyager, the plane that in the 1980s made the first non-stop unrefueled flight around the world.

But Voyager carried two pilots. Global Flyer will carry only one — a test of the pilot’s endurance and aircraft technology.

For more on this story, see the 6News news report at 10 p.m. on Sunflower Broadband’s Channel 6 and pick up a copy of Wednesday’s Journal-World.