Armadillo Aerospace Wins Lunar Lander Challenge Prize (Level 2)! September 13, 2009
Posted by Nick Azer in : Armadillo Aerospace, Google Lunar X Prize, lander, Lunar Lander Challenge 2008, Lunar Lander Challenge 2009 , 2comments
They’ve done it again: after being the first team to win a prize in the annual Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge last year, Armadillo Aerospace had another successful attempt in their 2009 effort yesterday:
They claimed a Level 2 prize. Next week, Masten Space Systems will be doing their own Level One prize attempt, with several attempts at the Level 2 coming in October, followed by Unreasonable Rocket‘s shot at both prizes at the end of the month.
For a lot more great videos on yesterday, check out the official X PRIZE Launch Pad post on it :)
Lunar Lander Challenge Wrap-Up October 28, 2008
Posted by Nick Azer in : Current News, Google Lunar X Prize, Lunar Lander Challenge 2008, Youtube , add a commentDay 2 of the 2008 Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge turned out to be uneventful. The official X Prize Foundation video recap explains what happened on the only attempt of the day:
Still, it was an exciting event and a great first day, with Armadillo Aerospace taking home the $350,000 prize with a successful flight and TrueZer0 getting a launch off (which, as you’ll see in the video below from the actual craft, didn’t end as well as it started:)
Keep an eye here at Luna C/I for future event coverage as the private space boom and Base Race continue to take shape :)
Lunar Lander Challenge: Day 1 Recap October 25, 2008
Posted by Nick Azer in : Current News, Google Lunar X Prize, Lunar Lander Challenge 2008, Youtube , add a commentDay 1 of the 2008 Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge is complete, and there’s some great success out of it to recap for ya. (A location note: the event, orginally scheduled to be at Holloman Air Force Base, was recently moved to a different venue, the Las Cruces Airport).
Of the nine teams to enter the contest, two managed to make it to the point of actually getting flights in at the Challenge: Armadillo Aerospace and TrueZer0 (check out my previous post for short profiles on each).
A congrats to Armadillo Aerospace as, third time being the charm this year (after competing the last two years), they won the $350,000 prize with a successful flight (check out that Space.com/MSNBC article for a full skinny on their frustrations, including a lot of clock problems, many due to the aforementioned venue change to Las Cruces airport).
“Color me quite frustrated on several counts.”
-John Carmack, Armadillo Aerospace founder/lead engineer, and co-founder of iD software (makers of Doom, Quake), to Space.com
TrueZer0 gets something of an underdog prize, though, despite not qualifying for a prize with their Level One flight: they were already only the fourth competitor ever to get their craft off the ground (and that’s ever, including in test flights), and they had entered the competition very late. Bad news, though, in that their craft (while making it into the air) crashed and burned after 18 seconds, being lost completely.
There’s a completely awesome recap from the X Prize Foundation of Day 1 up on Youtube today, embedded below for your enjoyment:
For Day 2 coverage, there’s a live blog by Leonard David at LiveScience chronicling the events as they happen, and of course there’s the live webcast with chat and much narration by Dr. Peter Diamandis, Chairman and CEO of the X Prize Foundation (which as you see with the video above, is itself really interesting, to see such a wealth of dialogue from an important figure in the private space boom). As TrueZer0 was only entering Level One competition, it’s all the Armadillo show today as they go for the big one, the Level Two prize (landing on difficult lunar surface-like terrain).
Check back for more link-a-riffic coverage here as the weekend rolls on… :)
Lunar Lander Challenge: The Teams October 24, 2008
Posted by Nick Azer in : Current News, Event Coverage, Lunar Lander Challenge 2008, spacevidcast.com, Youtube , add a commentAs promised earlier this week, here’s a look at the teams competing in the Lunar Lander Challenge event coming up tomorrow (starting at ~630am, looks like) and Saturday (via live webcast, from a new and really cool site I hadn’t heard about previously: Spacevidcast.com).
There are a total of nine teams; today, here’s a look at (for now, four of them; I’ll update this post with the others as the night comes along)
- Acuity Technologies: Coming from Menlo Park, California (just north of Palo Alto–home of Stanford–and the rest of Silicon Valley where I happened to grow up), Acuity is one of the teams returning from last year’s event. Started in 1992, Acuity develops specialized unmanned aerial systems. Their Level One (of two; there are two difficulty levels teams can compete for, one with smooth landing pad, one with a more lunar-surface-like landing area) “Hop & Hover” offering is a Hydrogen Peroxide and Methanol-fueled craft, coming in at 210 lbs.
- Armadillo Aerospace: The only team from last year’s event to get into the air, and only narrowly missing a victory in Level One competition (7 seconds short of the required time), Armadillo is a developer of resuable rocket-powered vehicles. Their site has a lot of goodies, including everything from a blog (of sorts) to a message board. They probably also have the logo and graphic design contests in the bag ;). Their craft, MOD, is a moose, weighing 1340 pounds with ~1800 pounds of thrust.
- BonNova: An engineering design firm, they’ve developed designs for extreme conditions ranging from racecars to oil wells (and, with their specially-formed rocket team, this Lunar Challenge). Also a returning team, their leader (Allen Newcomb) has experience from the winning craft (SpaceShipOne) of the Ansari X Prize. Their craft (“Lauyad I”) is similar in size to Acuity’s (small-ish, at 200 lbs), but is using a Propane and N2O propulsion system.
- High Expectations Rocketry: With no pressure from their name, High Expectations’ team comes from Moscow, Idaho as a first-time participant in the challenge. Composed of four guys (the first three teams coming in at four, seven, and five, respectively), they look to succeed where last year’s teams came up short. They are using more medium-sized craft, with their Level One offering “ISP 1″ coming in at 350 pounds on a Nitrous oxide, nylon and propane propulsion system.
The most interesting contrast, clearly, is that none of them use the same type of fuel (and the Armadillo’s craft weighing a good 1000 pounds more than the others’; note that Armadillo were the ones to get into the air last year, and so perhaps bigger will prove better?).
Tune into that webcast over the next two days to see just how the craft do, and check out the official matchup page.
Edit: Here’s the rest of the teams, I’ll edit/update as I go along.
- Paragon Labs: This Denver-based team developed their effort in what they describe as a “skunk-works” environment, fielding a weightier 650-pound (1800-pound gross) craft (“Volkon“) with a Liquid Oxygen/Ethanol fuel (check out this article for details on that combination). Chekc our their great gallery of works-in-progress and other images.
- Team Phoenicia: With their eyes also set on the Google Lunar X Prize, probably the more poetic of the teams (and a competitor with Armadillo in the graphic design department) comes in with “The Wind At Dawn”, a 660-pound RP-1(Rocket Propellant-1)-fueled craft with 550 pounds thrust. They’ve got an oddly familiar blog (I’m workin on it, I’m workin on it…;) ) and some sweet Youtubeage to go along with their interesting literary style.
- TrueZer0: This Chicagoland 4-man team comes with with a 475-pound craft called “Ignignokt” (a name that is gloriously and amazingly not invented by the team, unlike some of the other teams’ craft that ironically sound more like real-world influences; go figure) and plenty of dry humor (and as Ignignokt shows, humor of all kinds). Poetry, humor, armadillos; this competition has it all. Their site, while minimal, has a cool narrative to it, including some more great Youtube material. Ignignokt (and I presume his fellow “Mooninites“) are fueled by Hydrogen Peroxide and Nitrogen gas.
- Unreasonable Rocket: Fellow Blogspot-dwellers, their entry to the competition was the Hydrogen Peroxide-fueled Burning Speed 80 ( for the Level One), a 300 pound craft. As that link attest to though, they were not able to get operational in time. Shooting for next year (or the constant stream of opportunity we’ll be seeing for efforts like theirs over the next decade), though, would not be unreasonable ;)
- Seraphim Works is listed as a team on the official site, but their Landr Challenge page is a “coming soon” and a quick google turned up not even a whisper, so their status is unclear (and with so little presence at this late point, they are likely not a final competing team).
I watched Armadillo’s first attempt while finishing this up (8:30 am on the 24th), and it was entertaining, as they got into the air but didn’t fit within the required time frame. Tune back in at the end of the day for a full recap of that flight and the rest of Friday’s Lunar Lander Challenge events :)
Preview: X Prize Foundation's Lunar Lander Challenge October 20, 2008
Posted by Nick Azer in : Google Lunar X Prize, Lunar Lander Challenge 2008 , add a comment
Coming up this week (Friday the 24th and Saturday the 25th) is an event the X Prize Foundation announced back in June: the 2008 Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge.
The competition, taking place at Holloman Air Force Base in Alamogordo, New Mexico, challenges competing teams to successfully simulate an lunar orbit-to-surface trip, launching into the air and landing at a specified location and then making a return trip. The prize at stake is $2.5 million, making this the first of NASA’s Centennial Challenges to have a multi-million dollar purse.
There are nine teams set to compete, and the entire event will be webcast live, which should be a blast to watch. The X Prize Foundation’s got a fun little Matchups feature up to compare the teams and their offerings, and I’ll post a closer-profile look at all the teams later this week as things ramp up for the event.