LAS
CRUCES, NM - Private rocketry took another big step here thanks to the
persistence and space spunk of Armadillo Aerospace. After years of dedicated
work, the team of rocketeers snagged a large chunk of prize money in the
Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge.
The
Challenge is a two-level, $2 million competition designed to accelerate
commercial space technology as part of NASA's Centennial Challenges program.
Vehicles
built for the contest mimic lunar landers that exhibit the technological
wherewithal common to ferrying payloads or humans back and forth between lunar
orbit and the lunar surface.
Land of Countdowns
The
third Northrop Grumman Lunar
Lander Challenge was held here at the Las Cruces International Airport on
October 24-25 - and once again, the Land of Enchantment was turned into the
Land of Countdowns.
Led
by John Carmack, a 3D graphics pioneer and video game developer, Armadillo
Aerospace of Mesquite, Texas had long sought Challenge money.
In
2006, Armadillo's "Pixel" was the only craft to fly at the X Prize Cup, also
held here, and narrowly missed making a Level One win, but failed to do so due
to broken landing gear. A year later, the team missed
the prize by seven seconds.
This
year's win had the Armadillo team successfully fly their vehicle to a height of
some 160 feet (50 meters), then sky-scoot itself over to a distant landing pad,
land safely after a minimum of 90 seconds of in-the-air time... and then repeat
the flight.
The
Armadillo team had earned $350,000 in prize money.
As
champagne corks flew, Carmack was clearly elated: "All right! After three years
of trying at this we know we can do this...it's just having the circumstances
work out right for us."
Nose-diving crash
This
year, Armadillo faced its first head-to-head competitor. Also eying Level 1
prize money was TrueZer0 of Chicago, Illinois.
But shortly after liftoff, their vehicle ran into trouble. The
flight was aborted with the craft - called Ignignokt - nose-diving into scrub
brush and bouncing on its head to a final, but busted-up stop.
"The vehicle is basically a total loss at this point," said Scott
Zeeb of TrueZer0 in a post-crash briefing. "It was really not designed to take
anything like that, obviously."
TrueZer0 team member, Todd Squires, said the craft began to spin
as it reached altitude. "It started to wobble. I could see what was going
on...the spin was causing it to do that. So I hit the abort key and dropped it to
the ground."
Zeeb added: "The motor almost looks okay but the nozzle is a
little bent...so it might make a nice paperweight for my desk."
While the TrueZer0 group admitted that they had hoped to do
better, "we came out here with the understanding that we hadn't tested a huge
amount. We knew this was a real possibility...and we're okay with it," Zeeb
explained.
The vehicle was a $10,000 loss. "I'm going to have a beer and get
some sleep," Zeeb said.
Cash left on the table
Hoping to snare more NASA Centennial Challenge money, Armadillo
Aerospace tried the next day, on October 26, to fly the Level 2 Challenge.
Doing so meant flying a different vehicle geared to tackle a more
difficult task. The rocket needed to fly for 180 seconds then maneuver to a
precise landing atop a crater-pocked and rock-laden look-alike of a lunar
landscape.
But
the plucky craft failed shortly after ignition, falling on its side.
"We
had a burn through on the engine which caused it to shut down just as it was
throttling up," Carmack later reported. The vehicle suffered other damage as
well, with the Armadillo Aerospace team calling it a day without further
flights.
"Once
we really identify the root cause...we will kill the problem dead," an undaunted
Carmack said.
"We
think it's something on our electronics drivers," Carmack told SPACE.com.
"When we looked back at older data traces ... we could see signs of this being a
problem before. But it was only like in the last week when we started testing
these for this year that it actually became a problem causing aborts... but
nothing is going to fly until we've got a fix," he said.
Peter
Diamandis, Chairman and CEO of the X Prize Foundation, saluted the Armadillo
win. The X Prize Foundation manages the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge
for the NASA Centennial Challenges Program.
"The
incredible legacy of Armadillo is their ability to fly over and over again in a
low-cost fashion. They actually build the vehicle, fly it, see what happens,
and make the repairs. They can iterate multiple times in a couple of days,"
Diamandis told SPACE.com. "It's really the garage rocket scientist
approach to low-cost reliable vehicles. I think it's something that the larger
companies and the government should be learning from."
Diamandis
said that he hopes the Armadillo win is a stimulus for more teams. "There's $1.65
million left on the table," he noted.
Not
too distant from the Las Cruces International Airport is the still-to-be-built
Spaceport America - slated to be home base for Virgin Galactic and its suborbital
spaceliner operations - an enterprise backed by lofty visionary, Richard
Branson.
"New
Mexico and Spaceport America are committed to enabling the commercial space
industry. The Lunar Lander Challenge is accelerating technology development,"
said Steve Landeene, Executive Director of the New Mexico Spaceport Authority.
"Armadillo's
capture of the $350,000 Level 1 prize marks a significant milestone in the race
to space. No longer will space be relegated to government agencies," Landeene
noted.
A
new partnership to create a vertical takeoff/landing vehicle for suborbital
passenger flight was announced during the Challenge, linking up the Rocket
Racing League, Armadillo Aerospace, and the State - a joint collaboration that
adds to the list of companies who have already committed to do their work in New
Mexico and Spaceport America, Landeene pointed out.
"New
Mexico and Spaceport America are thrilled to be the place where Armadillo will
develop their vehicle," Landeene said. "The race to space is on for suborbital
transportation. Two totally different experiences will be provided. What a
great day this is."
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