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I was on vacation last week in London, but that did not stop me from making a visit to the Royal Aeronautical Society last Tuesday for their “Space Tourism: A New Industry in the Making” conference. I’ve written up some highlights of the conference in The Space Review this week. One of the bigger developments [...] Virgin Galactic announced this morning that the company has successfully carried out its first full-scale engine tests for SpaceShipTwo. Virgin released a video featuring the tests along with a press release: Neither the video nor the press release provide much in the way of technical details about the engine tests, other than the engine is [...] 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 pads used [...] 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 [...] 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 today, [...] 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 [...] TrueZer0 has left the staging area and is setting up for their flight attempt, no earlier than 11:30 am MDT (when the FAA window opens). Stay tuned for updates. Update 12:10 pm MDT: The vehicle took off and flew upwards for several seconds, then lost power and crashed. There was a small fire that was [...] 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 [...] I asked Will Pomerantz of the X Prize Foundation this morning to provide a brief preview of the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge that starts tomorrow. Here’s will talking about the status of the teams and how the competition will compare with the 2006 NGLLC, also held at the Las Cruces airport. The two teams competing in this year’s Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge (NGLLC), Armadillo and TrueZer0, set up at Las Cruces International Airport yesterday, and TrueZer0 formally got its FAA experimental permit yesterday as well (Armadillo got its permit earlier this month.) Current plans call for three flight windows each day (compared to two [...] |
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