Annual Competition Spurs Private Development Of Space Vehicles

The Northrup Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge has finally had to spend some of NASA's Centennial Challenges prize money. Armadillo Aerospace won the Level One Challenge at this past weekend's competition in Las Cruces, NM.

The Level One Challenge required competing spacecraft to lift off and climb vertically 50 meters; translate 100 meters horizontally; and make a controlled vertical descent to land on a second pad, with a required minimum duration of 90 seconds for the flight, and a return flight to the original launch pad within 2-and-a-half hours.

Last year, Armadillo had an engine shutdown commanded by an onboard computer seven seconds before reaching its goal. In 2006, it failed when a landing gear leg broke.

But the Las Cruces Sun-News reports that on Friday, the upstart commercial spacecraft developer completed both flights required to win the $350,000. A later attempt at the Level Two Challenge, which doubles the hover-time minimum and adds a requirement to land on an uneven, simulated lunar surface, was unsuccessful, leaving an additional $1.65 million in prize money unclaimed for a third year.

After the event, Armadillo Team Leader John Carmack told reporters, "It's great that we won the Level One, but we're going to keep working towards Level Two, which we can hopefully compete for again soon. We know exactly what we need to nail down and we expect to have it solved in the next couple of weeks."

Ten teams originally declared their intent to compete in this year's event. One dropped out before teams were publicly identified. Of the remaining nine, only Armadillo and TrueZer0 actually flew machines at this year's event.

This year's competition took place at the Las Cruces International Airport, reportedly moved there on short notice after the US Air Force withdrew its permission to hold the event at Holloman Air Force Base. Armadillo's first attempt at Level One Challenge ended early after officials in charge of closing the airspace to regular traffic didn't provide a long enough window to accommodate the flight.

NASA is funding the competition to spur development of private space vehicles that can land instruments on the moon's surface.

FMI: http://space.xprize.org/lunar-lander-challenge