Armadillo completed the first of its two flights for Level One of the Lunar Lander Challenge at about 1:25 MDT. It appears to have been a success, but there are now reports that there was a fire of some kind after landing–whether on the vehicle or pad is unclear–and it seems unlikely they will make […]
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A few updates here at the X Prize Cup just after 1 pm MDT Friday: Apparently the window for Armadillo’s launch has been extended, although exactly when they will attempt their flight remains unknown; At least one team (from the Univ. of Michigan) has climbed the tether in the Space Elevator Games; The only major […] Earlier in the morning they did a demo of the “Rocket Belt”: a rocket backpack that allows a man to fly–for 30 seconds. They the demo right in front of the media center: Fairly entertaining, especially for the kids. Shortly before Armadillo carted out their vehicle for their Lunar Lander Challenge attempt, Tripoli carried out another high-powered amateur launch: This was one more powerful than the one earlier this morning, and its parachutes worked as well. The 2.5-hour window for Armadillo Aerospace’s Lunar Lander Challenge Level 1 attempt started about 10 minutes ago when they crossed a white line on the tarmac at the airport. A few minutes later their vehicle, Pixel, was loaded onto a truck and headed for the competition site in the airport midfield. […] Armadillo’s Lunar Lander Challenge launch has been delayed by technical issues: apparently there is some wireless interference disrupting their link to their vehicle. They’re planning to go later this morning; they have a 2.5-hour launch window that opens at 11 am MDT. One team member said they believe they have a 70% chance of winning […] Here’s a brief video of the Tripoli launch earlier this morning: We had our first flight event just after 8:15 am MDT, with the launch of a Goddard replica rocket by Tripoli. The launch looked great: However, the rocket’s parachute failed to deploy and it crashed in a cloud of smoke. Armadillo Aerospace is scheduled to fly in about an hour for level one of the […] We’re an hour into the event and not much has happened: everything seems to be running behind schedule. We did have the ceremonial ribbon cutting with Peter Diamandis, Buzz Aldrin, and others at 7 am: Unfortunately, it looked like they used space elevator carbon nanotube material for the ribbon, so it took some time for […] Because the gates for the X Prize Cup opened at 6 am, I thought I should get here as close to 6 as possible, to beat the rush. And beat the rush I did: although there were minor delays getting through the security checkpoint outside the airport, I ended up being the first one in […] |
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