The X Prize
Foundation is seeking public comment on draft rules for a lunar lander contest
set for later this year.
The $2
million Lunar Lander Challenge, part of NASA’s Centennial Challenges
program to encourage development of low-cost space technologies, offers cash
prizes for the successful flight of a vertical launch and landing vehicle.
Foundation
officials plan to award up to five prizes of different denominations under two
categories – the toughest challenge, a successful roundtrip on a mock
lunar landscape, nets $1 million – during its 2006 X
Prize Cup event this October. [A complete set of draft rules is available here.]
“The
purpose of public comment is strictly for support,” X Prize Foundation spokesperson
Ian Murphy told SPACE.com, adding that final rules will be released
based on feedback on the draft set.
The X Prize
Foundation has a successful track record when it comes to space-themed
competitions. The group led the successful $10 million Ansari X
Prize competition – which challenged teams to build and launch a
piloted suborbital spacecraft twice in two weeks – then established plans
for the annual X
Prize Cup. SpaceShipOne,
a rocketship built by Mojave, California’s Scaled Composites and
aerospace veteran Burt Rutan, won
the X Prize purse.
“Our
goals are completely parallel,” Murphy said of the foundation and NASA.
“We want NASA to make things possible, and we, space industry, want to
make things profitable.”
According
to draft rules for the lunar lander contest, competitors will be challenged to
build a vehicle capable of launching vertically, travel a distance of 328 to
656 feet (100 to 200 meters) horizontally, and then land at a designated site.
A return trip would then occur between 5 minutes and 30 minutes later.
The contest
is expected to be divided into two levels, one for flat terrain, and the other
to resemble the lunar surface – with other cash prize amounts based on
level difficulty and finish results.
For Level 1
contests, vehicles must fly higher than 328 feet (100 meters) for about 90 seconds and
land on flat terrain no more than 10 meters from a target. Level 2 competitions
will feature the mock lunar surface and a minimum flight time of 180 seconds,
according to the draft rules.
Comments
are sought by March 1 with initial sign-ups slated for May 15, according to
draft rules, though Murphy added that the comment period could be extended to
30 days.
NASA worked with
the X Prize Foundation to develop its Centennial Challenges program,
ultimately partnering
in the Lunar Lander Challenge and the Suborbital Payload Challenge.
The
foundation’s call for comments follows a similar action by the Centennial
Challenges program earlier this month, when NASA announced preliminary rules
for six
new contests that ranged from power source demonstrations to space-based
fuel depot tests.
Comments on
the draft rules set for the Lunar Lander Challenge can be sent via e-mail to
the X Prize Foundation via e-mail at: LLComment@xprize.org.
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