Nearly
40 years after Americans first set foot on the moon on July 20, 1969 with
NASA's historic Apollo 11 flight, a host of private rocketeers are hoping to
follow to win a $30 million prize. Here, SPACE.com looks at ARCA, one of 17
teams competing in the Google Lunar X Prize:
Former
X Prize contenders such as the Romanian team ARCA could have called it a day
when Scaled Composites' SpaceShipOne won the $10 million Ansari X Prize on Oct.
4, 2004. Instead, ARCA hopes to build on its previous effort to reach the moon
and win the Google Lunar X Prize and even more prize money.
"We
have the experience now, we have the know-how, we have a list of companies that
can help us, we have connections," said Bogdan Sburlea, ARCA (Aeronautics
and Cosmonautics Romanian Association) project manager. "We already have some
technology from the previous competition."
That
tested
technology includes a balloon that can carry ARCA's European Lunar Explorer
(ELE) space probe into the upper atmosphere, eliminating the need for a
traditional launch pad and allowing ARCA to launch close to the equator from a
sea platform. The "0" pressure balloon design is similar to a giant
black hot-air balloon that uses solar energy to heat the air inside, instead of
the burner that normal hot-air balloons use.
Once
the balloon soars above 11 miles (18 km), the three-stage rocket slung below
will fire and boost itself into low Earth orbit. ELE will then travel to the
moon and deploy its Lunar Lander, which resembles a knobby rubber ball that
uses its own rocket engine to ensure a soft landing.
The
Google
Lunar X Prize requires teams to land a robot on the moon, move at least
1,640 feet (500 meters) and beam high definition views back to Earth. ARCA's
round lander would skim the lunar surface using its rocket engine.
Unlike
some teams with plans for lunar rovers
or crawlers, ARCA sprang for the easiest lunar lander they could design.
The team's focus is on getting to the moon, as opposed to what happens once
they get there.
"Our
design for the lander is extremely simple, it's a sphere," Sburlea said.
"It's too complicated, too expensive to build a robot."
ARCA
completed propulsion tests of its STABILO hybrid rocket launcher in March, as
part of its switch from single propellant propulsion. Team leader Dumitru
Popescu also suffered health problems that led the team to delay its initial planned
launch last fall.
The
issue of expense hangs over all
the teams competing for the Google Lunar X Prize. ARCA has lined up private
sponsors within Romania for different parts of the effort, such as fuel and
materials, and is confident that it can accomplish its goals fairly cheaply.
Most
members of the ARCA team have volunteered their time for the effort, heeding
the call of team leader Dumitru Popescu to promote Romanian space efforts. The
nonprofit group may not draw much financial support from the Romanian
government, but that's the entire point — to blaze the way for future
private space endeavors.
"We
won't use $30 million," Sburlea noted, referring to the total awards purse
for the Lunar X Prize. "We know for sure that it's going to be much less
from previous experience, previous launches."
The
$30 million Google Lunar X Prize breaks down into a $20 million grand prize for
first place, $5 million for second place, and an additional $5 million bonus.
By comparison, the Ansari X Prize that ARCA was previously aiming for an
awarded $10 million.
Sburlea
said he had expected the next X Prize to build on the Ansari X Prize by asking
teams to put a man into orbit. However, he added that the Google Lunar X Prize
goal may actually ease some of the pressure on the
competitors.
"We
are not talking about manned spaceflight," Sburlea said. "If
something goes wrong, so what? Nobody dies."
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