As the 2008 Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge was winding down, I was able to sit down and talk with John Carmack of Armadillo Aerospace for several minutes. Below is the video from that interview, where Carmack discusses what happened with Pixel on Saturday, his plans for the future (which begin with tracking down [...]
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The X PRIZE Foundation issued a press release about the 2008 Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge Saturday, highlighing Armadillo’s Level 1 victory, their attempt at Level 2, as well as TrueZer0′s Level 1 attempt. Also, I’ve uploaded another set of photos to Flickr with the highlights of Saturday’s activities, including a look at launch [...] It appears that Pixel suffered enough damage that they will not be able to repair it in time to fly again today. Still waiting for official word, but all indications over the radio loop indicate that Armadillo will not try to fly again today. John Carmack said in a brief press conference that this [...] I’ve created a Flickr set of images from yesterday’s activities at the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge. The picture above, though, probably best represents the mood of people here at the end of the day yesterday when Armadillo Aerospace won the $350,000 first prize for Level 1. They’ll be back at it again [...] Armadillo completed a sucecssful return flight this afternoon, remaining in the air about 95 seconds before landing safely. All they need to do at this point is to return the vehicle to the staging area in time to claim the prize, and right now that doesn’t appear to be a problem. There are a [...] As Armadillo was trying to win Level 1 of the LLC, this press release about a joint venture between Armadillo Aerospace, Rocket Racing Inc., and the state of New Mexico to develop VTVL space tourism vehicles hit the wires: ROCKET RACING INC., ARMADILLO AEROSPACE AND NEW MEXICO CREATE JOINT VENTURE TO LAUNCH PRIVATE [...] I’m at Las Cruces International Airport, where the first day of the 2008 Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge is underway. Armadillo is up first to attempt Level 1 with its Mod-1 vehicle. TrueZer0 is scheduled for the midday slot for Level 1, then Armadillo will use Pixel this afternoon for Level 2, if [...] In an article in this week’s issue of The Space Review, I look at the status of the Rocket Racing League (RRL), which was formally introduced to the public three years ago this month. The RRL took a big step forward about two and a half months ago, with its first public flights of [...] Speaking of Armadillo’s John Carmack, in his team’s latest update, he provides his own unvarnished assessment of the various companies in the suborbital spaceflight sector. The Scaled Composites/Virgin Galactic partnership “is the safest bet for success”, but cautions that Virgin may need the field to itself in order to make a profit on SpaceShipTwo: [...] A session of the Space Access ’08 conference last night dealt with “paths to rocket piloting”: how can people who are interested in piloting a number of the new suborbital vehicles under development prepare for getting those jobs. Some companies have turned to test pilots and/or former astronauts, but if this industry does grow, [...] |
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