Hailing from ‘Rocket City, USA’—-Huntsville, Alabama— the RCSPs are an experienced group of engineers. Four of the eight initial team members are seasoned employees of Dynetics, with others including Jason Andrews of Andrews Space and general manager of Draper Laboratory, Peter Paceley.

In fact, the team’s leader has been on a winning X PRIZE team before: Tim Pickens, lead propulsion engineer and commercial space advisor on the legendary SpaceShipOne.

With this stellar experience, alongside the resources that Dynetics (currently developing a lunar lander test bed for NASA) and the other companies involved so closely can line up, Rocket City Space Pioneers is definitely a team to be keeping an eye out for…

This roundup’s going to cover the month-long period of July 20th-August 20th, with Roundup #29 (coming shortly) covering the 20th-27th.

So, without further ado, here’s a whole month of GLXP highlights. A lot of technical advancement can be seen…it feels like the competition is rounding a new corner. Exciting! :) Check out the whole lowdown:

• Next Giant Leap and Astrobotic are both seeking awards from NASA’s big new $30.1 million for lunar data! GLXP Gal Amanda Stiles posted a neat feature article on NASA’s move, and GLXP guy Will Pomerantz also blogged about it :)
• Team ARCA‘s Mission 4 was postponed to October after a balloon problem on their attempt. Here’s the mission overview and the initial computer animation.
• Team FREDNET tested components of their rover on a balloon flight (more on the components)! They also blogged video updates on their rover’s progress, a look at lunar squirrel cages and a presentation in Spanish :)
• Team Omega Envoy began construction on their lunar lander prototype, and also announced they’ll have a Honeybee Robotics payload on the lander!
• Team Part Time Scientists‘ rover came to life with its first steps, and they also blogged about it’s brain. (“It’s alive!”) They were also interviewed by Evadot!
• Team White Label Space established themselves as a Foundation, and partnered with Advanced Composites! They were also interviewed by the Asia Times regarding the impact of the upcoming Russian/Indian Chandrayaan-2 and blogged about the mission structure of the NASA Surveyor program, the leader of partner Lunar Numbat’s upcoming TEDx talk,
• Team SELENE blogged all about their weather balloon project: technical progress, fun parachute tests, preparation,the Wilson cloud chamber design and related atom physics! They also featured an article from the Asia Times about GLXP goings-on and blogged more about thelunar mail-by-cannon concept :)
• Team Astrobotic blogged about lunar excavators they are developing, attitude control testing, ramp deployment without motors,. Also, their leader (David Gump) was interviewed for a Carnegie Mellon podcast on the team, the Pittsburgh Tribune featured the team’s multiple award goals, and they were also featured by MSNBC.
• Team Synergy Moon partnered with Aerogels Australia B&C! They also posted photos of a model of their rover.
• Team Barcelona Moon added the Technical University of Catalonia to their team! They (and team FREDNET) were also featured on Spanish TV.
• The New York Times featured Google’s GLXP point gal, Tiffany Montague!
• New Scientist featured 11 total teams in a slideshow article!

I’ll have Roundup #29 posted this weekend as well, and next week the Roundups will be back on their weekly rotation :)

The Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) is a way for NASA to announce that it’s ready and looking to purchase certain data:

“The BAA asks for information about the design and demonstration of an end-to-end lunar landing mission. This includes data associated with hardware design, development and testing; ground operations and integration; launch; trajectory correction maneuvers; lunar braking, burn and landing; and enhanced capabilities.” -“NASA Seeks Data from Innovative Lunar Demonstrations”, NASA

This essentially gives smaller companies making lunar efforts (like those in the Google Lunar X PRIZE) one big new customer. There will be multiple awards, so a number of different companies could submit proposals and receive contracts, resulting in a lot of potential new federal business opportunities.

Contracts have a $10,000 minimum, and NASA’s deadline for proposals is September 8th.

This is a significant concrete step in NASA’s move towards focusing on private space; by handing the money out externally, they could in theory help support the economy while acquiring that same data.

Stay tuned as that deadline approaches; September 8th will come up pretty fast, so before long we should be seeing a lot of interesting updates on the various contracts that come out of this :)

I’ll have a $30 million update and a mondo-sized Google Lunar X PRIZE Roundup over the next few days, so stay tuned, and keep an eye out for little revamps here and there with the shiny new digs :D

In the meantime, keep an eye on my Twitter page :)

• Team SELENE posted about mail by cannon. Yes, cannon. There’s even test video. (All you need to do is launch bacon out of it and the awesomeness will be complete! :D )
• Team FREDNET signed a memorandum of understanding with Broward College, bringing CubeSat experience :) They also blogged about satellite views of a solar eclipse.
• Team Astrobotic posted video of a test of their rover’s motors! They also continue to cook up Black Magic.
• Team White Label Space‘s rover is receiving a master’s thesis thermal analysis :)
• Team Synergy Moon posted about NASA’s announcement of new Centennial Prizes!
• Team Part Time Scientists uploaded a bunch more pictures of their ILA ’10 presence :)
• Mike Doornbos (of neat podcasting spot Evadot) is taking over the GLXP social media reins for a week (with the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE racing down to its finish)! :)
• NASA Propulsion Academy students visited the GLXP! (Future lunar pioneers? :) )
• The GLXP LEGO MoonBots teams received Mindstorms kits from LEGO HQ! :)

This week, NASA announced three new Centennial Challenge prizes—the first in five years :) Much like the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge, these prizes set tasks to be completed for $1.5-2 million each.

Two of the new challenges are directly lunar-related:

• Night Rover Challenge: Demonstrate a solar-powered rover that can store its energy to operate during the lunar night. With the theorized Peak of Eternal Light shown to not quite exist (89% illumination being the max), and most of the Moon receiving less than that regardless, sustainable (and cost-effective) night operation will prove to be a critical leg-up for any lunar effort.
• Sample Return Robot Challenge: A prize for the aspiring Jack Schmitts and Lee Silvers of the world (…or, worlds), this challenge sets forth the task of demonstrating a robot that can retrieve geologic samples from a wide, varied terrain without human interference.

Both prizes have a purse of $1.5 million, with the third Nano-Satellite prize having a purse of $2 million.

• A potential new GLXP team, Phoenicia,  is looking for ‘kickstarts’ to get them into the running!
• Team ARCA posted a slideshow of their Helen 2 rocket being loaded onto a ship in preparation for their upcoming test launch!
• Team SELENE posted about their antennas for an upcoming weather balloon experiment!
• Team Astrobotic conjured up a post on their “Black Magic”… :)
• Team C-Base Open Moon posted a 3-D rendering of their rover!
• Team Part Time Scientists held a contest on their Twitter page :) They also blogged about their one-year anniversary!

To keep up on all of the teams’ Twitterverse activities, check out my handy GLXP Twitter List :)

A permanently-shadowed crater within the larger, northern Rozhdestvenskiy, the LRO’s advanced Mini-RF imaging technology was able to bring out the Circular Polarization Ratio (CPR) of the crater and its surroundings. A stark contrast between the two suggests thick deposits of ice, as were shown generally to exist around the north pole earlier this year.

You better get used to ‘Rozhdestvenskiy’, as deposits will surely make this an icy hotspot for future lunar missions and subsequent (lucrative) mining efforts.

• Team ARCA is sending childrens’ artwork to space! And still taking submissions :)
• Team Synergy Moon welcomed a new development group for their Tesla  prospector rover!
• Team Astrobotic took a look at potential sun shield materials :)
• Team White Label Space highlighted new work by their Guidance Navigation and Control (GNC) engineer, Dhanushka Chamara Liyanage!
• A member of team Omega Envoy, Jason Dunn, reported on the interesting project tracks at Singularity University!
• Team Part Time Scientists celebrated their 1-year anniversary as a team! Meanwhile, Will Pomerantz of the GLXP celebrated his 5-year anniversary with the X PRIZE Foundation—lots of milestones :)