Peter Diamandis hinted that they may try to move up next year’s competition so that Armadillo and other teams don’t have to wait until next October to try again. “I feel like a game show host” when say that Armadillo is walking away with $350,000, for first prize in Level One. “And we hope you return next time to go for the million-dollar award.”

Below: an image of the Pixel engine nozzle that was damaged in this morning’s attempted flight.

One reason this anniversary has slipped by is there there has been little activity in the suborbital spaceflight arena of the same high profile in the four years since SpaceShipOne’s prize-winning flight. In fact, there have been no FAA-licensed piloted suborbital spaceflights in the last four years; there have been a number of low-level test flights since then, but these have been remotely piloted and under experimental permits. That’s not to say that there hasn’t been progress, just not at the scale, or the rate, that we might have anticipated on that glorious morning four years ago.

As I noted in an article at the beginning of this week in The Space Review, Sunday night’s successful launch of the Falcon 1 might be the biggest milestone for the NewSpace industry, or at least the portion of it focused on space transportation, since SpaceShipOne’s final flight. Just as SpaceShipOne’s flights demonstrated that a private venture could develop a piloted vehicle capable of flying into space (albeit suborbitally) for a fraction of the cost of what a large aerospace company or government agency would have spent, the Falcon 1 launch demonstrated what entrepreneurial space companies can do in the realm of orbital space flight. As with SpaceShipOne, though, the issue will be how well both SpaceX and the rest of the industry can follow up on that initial success, so that future anniversaries have greater relevance.

• There’s still little in the way of technical information about the engine failure this afternoon. There was not a catastrophic explosion but instead a fire that burned for about a minute or so. “Pieces” came off the vehicle, such as cables, but the overall structure appears to be intact. The vehicle will be moved to a hangar shortly.
• There don’t appear to be any plans for any further official briefings about the accident or event in general, although there will be a closed technical debrief with the judges, Armadillo team, and others this afternoon. The X Prize Foundation plans to publish a statement later today/tonight with more details.
• There were no injuries caused by the fire. The closest people to it were an Armadillo team in a van an unspecified distance away; at the time of the fire they walked away from the site. Fire engines were called in, but the fire put itself out before the trucks arrived.
• Alexander said that despite Armadillo’s failed bids to win a prize purse, the event in general was a success. Armadillo showed considerable flexibility in trying to win the prize, and the static displays by the other LLC teams and other exhibitors got a strong message about the industry out to the public.
• Holloman AFB officials estimate the combined attendance over the two days of the show at 80,000, twice the size of the last air show two years ago, and higher than the 60,000 X Prize estimated would attend. In addition, the education day on Friday attracted 6,000 people.
• Northrop Grumman, who has a two-year deal (2006 and 2007) to sponsor the competition, was “very pleased” with the event even though no one won; they have yet to decide whether to renew their sponsorship. Wirefly, who sponsored the overall Cup last year, pulled out rather late because of financial problems with the company, Alexander said, citing publicly-announced developments regarding that company.
• The combination of the LLC with a conventional airshow worked well, he said. The airshow events helped fill in what would otherwise be dead time between prize events during the day (although there were still quiet periods with little going on, particularly during the times Armadillo was preparing its vehicle for flight.) X Prize is looking at options for next year’s event, which include returning to Holloman; a decision will be made in the next few months; they are obligated under their agreement with NASA to hold an LLC competition once a year through 2010, in one manner or another.
• Two or three other teams came close to participating this year, although none got to the point of doing untethered flights, like Armadillo has been doing for a year. Alexander believes that more than one team will be ready to participate next year.

• This is indeed a lunar rover prize, with the goal of soft-landing a spacecraft on the Moon, roams at least 500 meters, and returns two “Mooncasts” (hi-res panoramic photos and video);
• The prize is $20 million for the first to achieve the feat, and $5 million for the second; there is also $5 million in additional “bonus” prizes for things ranging from discovering water ice to having the most “ethnically diverse” team;
• Google is providing the $30M in prize money, but will allow other sponsors to come in and support additional bonus prizes;
• The prize expires on December 31, 2014, and the grand prize decreases to $15 million if the prize is not won by December 31, 2012;
• SpaceX will provide Falcon launches “at cost” to competition participants, a savings of about 10 percent from list prizes (according to Elon Musk, who also spoke at the press conference);
• The SETI Institute and Universal Space Networks are also providing communications support for competitors;
• As for why do a lunar lander prize, I asked Peter Diamandis about this after the event. Their top two choices for the next big space prize they wanted to do was a lunar lander prize and a human orbital spaceflight prize. Google was particularly interested in funding the lunar prize (and a human orbital spaceflight prize would have required at least $50M, he said) so that’s the direction they took.

I’ll have more on this later, and also probably in Monday’s issue of The Space Review, as my schedule permits (I have a redeye back to the east coast tonight…)

If this report is correct, then it is not that surprising. A “real” lunar lander competition had long been discussed as a potential long-term prize, either for the X Prize or NASA’s Centennial Challenges program. (NASA deputy administrator Shana Dale will participate in the prize announcement today in Los Angeles, NASA announced yesterday.) And it’s also not that surprising to see Google taking a lead sponsorship role, given that Google co-founder Larry Page is on the board of trustees of the X Prize Foundation and that Google has hosted some X Prize-related events in the past. It does sound more credible than some of the other ideas that have been floated about, like a point-to-point suborbital space prize.

And why should you trust Esther Wojcicki anyway? She’s a high school journalism teacher in Palo Alto, California. She’s also the mother-in-law of Sergey Brin, the other co-founder of Google, so she’s something of an inside source.

Meanwhile, the Romanian group ARCA plans to participate at the X Prize Cup and the International Symposium for Personal Spaceflight immediately preceding it, discussing the progress they’re making on Stabilo, their balloon-launched manned vehicle. Stabilo has an unconventional design, looking like an escape rocket mounted on one end of a dumbbell. ARCA believes that they will be ready for manned flight tests of Stabilo by the spring of 2007; presumably they’ll share more details about their test schedule at the Cup.

Finally, SPACE.com has an update about those teams competing in the two Centennial Challenge lander events at the Cup. “We are looking pretty good,” John Carmack of Armadillo Aerospace, one the Lunar Lander Challenge competitors, said. Dave Masten of Masten Space Systems later told the Lunar Lander Challenge blog that his company is also still planning to participate in the event.