UPDATE: Story first posted 12:37 p.m.
EDT
LOS
ANGELES, California -- A Lunar Lander Analog Challenge is being spearheaded by
NASA and the X Prize Foundation--a $2.5 million dollar NASA Centennial
Challenge dedicated to enhancing the space agency's return to the Moon effort.
Details of the
challenge were outlined here today by NASA's Deputy Administrator Shana Dale at
the International Space Development Conference. X Prize Chairman, Peter
Diamandis presented the rules and officially opened the competition for team
registration.
"NASA's
contribution to the Lunar Lander analog challenge is $2 million. This is the
most significant investment yet, in terms of prizes that we're doing under the
Centennial Challenges," Dale told SPACE.com.
Dale said
that NASA is looking at ways the space agency can tap into innovation in the
private sector. That means working with traditional aerospace, entrepreneurial
companies involved in aerospace, as well as high-tech firms that have no
business at all with NASA, she added.
Nice
marriage
"In the
case of this competition, it is really a marriage of the kind of rockets, the
kind of landing systems we need for the return to the Moon," said Brant
Sponberg, Program Manager of Centennial Challenges at NASA Headquarters in
Washington, D.C.
"We're also
trying to tap into some of the suborbital guys that are interested in vertical
takeoff, vertical landing. It's a nice marriage," Sponberg told SPACE.com.
For
example, John Carmack's Armadillo Aerospace as well as the tight-lipped Blue
Origin company bankrolled by Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com, are both
working on vertical launch and landing vehicles.
Repeat
the feat
The idea is
to have competing teams demonstrating their vehicle's ability to launch
vertically, hover in mid-air, land on a target more than 100 yards away and
then repeat the feat.
The $2.5M
Lunar Lander Challenge will require a vehicle to simulate a trip between the
Moon and low Moon orbit. The competition is divided into two courses. The more
difficult of the courses--level 2--requires a vehicle to take off from a
designated launch area and elevate to at least 50 meters. It must then fly for
at least 180 seconds before landing precisely in an area simulating a rocky
lunar surface 100 meters away.
The vehicle
has the option to refuel before repeating the requirements of the first leg
while traveling back to the original launch area. The less difficult of the two
courses, level 1, requires a minimum flight time of 90 seconds and has a flat
even surface on which to land and refuel.
NASA and
the X Prize Foundation have signed a Space Act Agreement to formalize their
collaboration on a Lunar Lander Challenge.
The Space
Act Agreement states that the X Prize Foundation, which provided the catalyst
for the recent explosion in private spaceflight companies with the Ansari X
Prize, will administer and execute the competitions at no cost to NASA.
NASA will
provide prize funding to the winning contestants.
Novel
program
The Lunar Lander
Challenge will be held at the X Prize Cup in Las Cruces, New Mexico, starting
in October 18-21 of this year.
NASA's
Centennial Challenges promotes technical innovation through a novel program of
prize competitions. It is designed to tap the nation's ingenuity to make
revolutionary advances to support the Vision for Space Exploration and NASA
goals. NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate manages the program.
In 2004,
the Ansari X Prize proved that offering a prize is an effective, efficient and
economical model for acceleration breakthroughs in science and technology.
Based on that success, the X Prize Foundation is now expanding their efforts to
offer more prizes in the space industry, as well as, in the areas of health,
energy, transportation, and education.
More
prizes to come
NASA's
Sponberg said there are other Centennial Challenges in the offing--perhaps
attached to even larger prize dollars.
Some things
that might evolve in the future, Sponberg said, are other rocket competitions
especially in the non-toxic reusable rocket arena. Also, a lunar rover - akin
to that used by Apollo moonwalkers--could make for an interesting competition,
he said.
"Eventually,
we'd like to ramp up to something like a prize for a full space mission,"
Sponberg said, such as a lunar landing purse involving privately-backed
delivery of a payload onto the Moon.
For more
information about NASA's Centennial Challenges, visit: http://centennialchallenges.nasa.gov
Leonard David is a Senior Space Writer for SPACE.com and the former editor of Ad Astra, the official magazine of the National Space Society
NOTE:
The views of this article are the author's and do not reflect the policies of the National Space Society.
Visit SPACE.com/Ad Astra Online for more news, views and scientific inquiry from the National Space Society.
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