Another day, another failed attempt to forward space technology. Less than a week after the Space Elevator Games concluded without a winner, the X Prize Cup followed suit. The much favored Armadillo Aerospace—the only one of nine entrants ready by the start of the event—dashed hopes when their lander exploded while still on the launch pad. Accordingly, no one walked away with the $350,000 Level 1 purse, leaving our LANDR proposition (trading in the mid-60s at the start of the competition) to close out at $0. Sorry space fans, better luck next time.—Abby Seiff
By Seth FletcherPosted 10.27.2007 at 6:47 pm1 Comment
That tiny speck in the distance is Armadillo Aerospace's MOD 1 aircraft, right before not quite winning the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge at the X Prize Cup in Alamogordo, New Mexico on Saturday. To win Level One, the lander has to rise up to 150 feet in the air, hover for 90 seconds and land on a pad 100 meters away. Then it has to do the same thing in reverse. MOD 1 nailed the first part, but failed in the final stretch of its reverse trip. A nozzle failure knocked the lander off balance with only seven seconds to go, causing it to miss the landing pad. As a result, the $350,000 prize is still unclaimed. —Seth Fletcher
Update: Sunday morning's attempt failed, too, again on the reverse trip. Sounds like the problem this time was a crack in the MOD 1's engine—MOD 1's new engine, which the Armadillo team installed after yesterday's failed try. Word is they'll try it Level One again this afternoon.
Another update: No dice for Armadillo this year. Their afternoon attempt failed; there was talk earlier today of a possible third attempt this evening, but according to an X Prize spokesperson, Armadillo founder John Carmack decided against it. That means it'll be this time next year, at the earliest, before anyone wins the prize.
Private space travel has long been dominated by visionary entrepreneurs. Now that the largest aerospace company in Europe has decided to build a tourist rocket, will the race to the stars finally take off?
By Michael BelfiorePosted 09.20.2007 at 2:00 am0 Comments
As the latest entrant into the rapidly-expanding space tourism field, EADS will face some stiff competition. Launch the gallery ["View Photos" at left] to see just how many companies worldwide will be vying for your space-tourist dollar
Space elevators, lunar landers and X-Racers, oh my! The first day of the 2006 Wirefly X Prize Cup blasted into New Mexico with rocket launches, stealth-jet flyovers, and two multimillion-dollar engineering contests to encourage innovation in the field of space exploration.
Competitive highlights included a successful flight of Armadillo Aerospace’s lunar-lander prototype and the triumphant ascent of the University of Michigan’s robotic space elevator on a 200-foot tether.
Practically every school-aged kid in New Mexico was in attendance (missing-child announcements over the intercom were frequent, but our editor in chief’s nine-year-old son Rex managed not to get lost), and representation from aerospace firms both large and small was top-notch.
There was some schedule confusion and an occasional, unfortunate overlap of events, but that was predictable, since the agenda was executed at the whims of weather, team readiness and New Mexico timekeeping.
Former astronaut Buzz Aldrin, NM governor Bill Richardson, and Rocket Racing League CEO Granger Whitelaw all gave speeches, but the standout was Anousheh Ansari, the first private female space explorer, who gave a moving address imploring kids to learn as much as possible and then dream beyond the boundaries of their education.
You really have to give X Prize founder Peter Diamandis, his crew and the enthusiastic participants in this nascent industry credit: that this visionary event exists at all is a tribute to their tenacity and dedication to making something—a privately funded space-exploration business—out of absolutely nothing.
Check out the following video for a tour of the day’s events with Future Girl Megan Miller.
The X Prize Cup's space elevators didn't fare much better, but the event provided high drama for spectators
By Megan MillerPosted 10.21.2006 at 2:00 am0 Comments
The Wirefly X Prize Cup was a three-ring circus of space-related entertainment for the thousands of spectators who filed in to experience rocket launches and flight simulations, meet astronauts and tech dignitaries, and watch teams of engineers vie for $2 million in NASA-sponsored prize money. But although the action was brisk, all three of the NASA prizes–the $200,000 Climber Challenge, the $200,000 Tether Challenge and the $2-million Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge–went unwon over the course of the weekend.
While the rocket races will have to wait a year, inventors showed off plenty of private space technology at this year's X Prize Cup showcase
By Michael BelfiorePosted 10.18.2005 at 2:00 am0 Comments
The X Prize Cup, an annual rocket race and showcase set to touch down every October in Las Cruces, New Mexico, held its inaugural gathering on October 9. Founder Peter Diamandis, whose X Prize Foundation last year awarded $10 million for the first private manned spaceship, plans for the XP Cup to be a chance for space fans to meet the engineers and pilots of a new generation of commercial spaceships and to watch them compete in rocket races both in and out of the Earth's atmosphere.
Is ex-Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen backing Rutan? More on the Silicon Valley connection
By David H. FreedmanPosted 06.13.2003 at 12:36 pm0 Comments
After innovative aircraft designer Burt Rutan unveiled SpaceShipOne and the White Knight, the tandem he hopes will win the X Prize, there was speculation that billionaire and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen provided the seed capital. Employees at Allen's investment company, Vulcan Ventures, won't comment on his involvement, and representatives of Rutan's Scaled Composites have stayed mum. But Allen would actually be conspicuous by his absence from the New Space Race, given the stream of other Silicon Valley and Seattle high-tech moguls rushing in to stake their claim to outer space.
By Preston LernerPosted 06.13.2003 at 12:27 pm0 Comments
Even as they embraced him as amiably as suburbanites welcoming a newcomer to the neighborhood, leading X Prize contenders had a message for Burt Rutan: Bring it on.
"Many people seem to be overreacting," says John Carmack, a computer-game legend (Doom, Quake) and founder of Armadillo Aerospace in Dallas. "Burt is somewhat further along than we had hoped. But we still feel we have a solid shot of getting there first."