On Friday, roughly 24 hours from the time of writing of this
article, the Northrop Grumman Lunar
Lander Challenge, a program funded by NASA’s Centennial Challenges program
and organized by the X-Prize Foundation is about to commence.
The yearly event, now in its third consecutive year, offers
cash prizes to teams who successfully launch re-usable Vertical
Take-Off/Vertical Landing (VTVL) rockets, which achieve the necessary change in velocity (Δv) required to move
between the surface of the moon and its orbit.
There are two levels of the competition, each with different
amounts of cash as a prize, and each with strict rules which must be followed
for the flight to be considered successful.
Level 1, with a prize of $350,000 for first place and $150,000
for second place, requires the entrant to take off from a special launch pad, fly
up to an altitude of 150 feet, and hover for 90 seconds before landing 50
meters away on a circular landing pad ten meters in diameter. The rocket must
then be refueled and perform a return flight in the same conditions. The round
trip, including the refuel, must take no more than 150 minutes.
Level 2, with a first place prize of $1 million and $500,000
for second place, takes the difficulty up a bit, as the hover period is twice
as long at 180 seconds, and the pad is a simulated lunar surface, complete with
craters and boulders and the like. The flight times for level 2 are calculated
so as to simulate the kind power one would actually need for a lunar lander
mission.
The challenge will be held over the next two days, October
24 and 25, at the Las Cruces International Airport in New Mexico. There are
seven competitors, which include BonNova, Paragon Labs, Team Phoenicia,
TrueZer0, Unreasonable Rocket, and the only competitor in the two previous
years – Armadillo Aerospace. Armadillo have on both previous occasions failed
to claim the prize, and this time they’re not
alone. Interesting tidbit for gamers: Armadillo Aeorspace's chief engineer is id Software co-founder John Carmack, designer of the Doom and Quake series of shooters. He took up rocketry in reviving a childhood hobby and is a self-taught aerospace engineer.
Meanwhile here's the count-down to the event, which will be webcast live here
