2008 X-Prize/N-G Lunar Lander Challenge

[mattfalk]

Looks like it will be more of a competition this year, depending on how many teams will actually be ready, of course:

http://www.xprize.org/llc/press-release/x-prize-foundation-announces-ten-teams-vying-for-northrop-grumman-lunar-lander-cha

Too bad it will be closed to the public.  I saw last year's attempts at the X-Prize Cup (next one's in '09).  This one should be pretty interesting.

[jongoff]

Looks like it will be more of a competition this year, depending on how many teams will actually be ready, of course.

Unfortunately that caveat says it all.  There were 9 teams registered last year, and something like 5-7 registered the year before.   Of those, only one has ever flown anything stably for more than 1-2 seconds.  As it stands, I'd be surprised if Armadillo had more than one solid competitor again this year. 

The rules state that in order to compete you have to do a qualification flight at least 30 days before the competition.  That's only about 80 days from now.  Getting from having never flown a vehicle before to being able to fly a vehicle *reliably*, and turn it around quickly (you have 150min from when you leave your staging area to when you have to be back) in only 80 days is a tall order. 

Unless some team has been tether testing vehicles in secret (Paragon?), I think Armadillo's only competition this year may be Murphy.  I hope Kevin's team proves me wrong (and that them doing our flight tanks for 0.2 didn't distract them too much).

~Jon

[Danderman]

Concerning the number of flight attempts vs registered participants, for the CATS Prize, the X Prize and the Lunar G Prize, there have been many participants, but for each, only one team actually attempted a flight.

I wonder if that is coincidence, or is inherent in the nature of space prizes?

[jongoff]

Concerning the number of flight attempts vs registered participants, for the CATS Prize, the X Prize and the Lunar G Prize, there have been many participants, but for each, only one team actually attempted a flight.

I wonder if that is coincidence, or is inherent in the nature of space prizes?

Not sure.  Though with the fact that the NG-LLC has second place prizes, I'm willing to bet there will eventually be a second team that actually flies. 

But I can definitely see some dynamics that could lead space prizes to those results.

~Jon

[mattfalk]

Oh, I hardly expect 10 teams to show up.  I'd be pretty shocked if it were half that many.  But I would hope there'd be at least 2 or 3 teams ready to fly something by now - it's been a few years of just the one team out there...

[jongoff]

Oh, I hardly expect 10 teams to show up.  I'd be pretty shocked if it were half that many.  But I would hope there'd be at least 2 or 3 teams ready to fly something by now - it's been a few years of just the one team out there...

Being on one of those other teams (though I can't speak for the company, I am the propulsion engineer at Masten Space Systems), I have to agree that it would appear so.  The reality is though that this is tough.  Even building a little rocket that can hover around for a few seconds is a tough enough challenge.  Building one with good performance that can *reliably* run the course is even tougher.  It's a multidisciplinary problem, and most of these teams are very small and undercapitalized.  Most people also forget that Armadillo has been around for around 8 years now.  I think they got started back before I left for my mission in 2000.  Admittedly now that it's possible to get high grade peroxide again, it does make it easier for a team to compete in Level 1, but building a reliable Level 2 vehicle is not a trivial task, especially if you either a) have to pay your workers, or b) don't have another successful non-aerospace company that is making enough money that you don't have to worry about funding.  Even with proper financial resources it still takes time, and a lot of work (and probably some mangled metal along the way).

On the technical side, the biggest thing it comes back to is reliability.  Since in order to even qualify for winning the prize you have to do two back-to-back flights in short order, you need a vehicle reliability high enough that your odds of two consecutive flights without lots of repairs and coaxing between flights is very high.  That's a much bigger challenge than getting something that will fly once or twice.

I think there's a chance Armadillo might have some competition this year for Level 1, but I think the odds of anyone else trying Level 2 is almost nil, and the odds of Armadillo flying solo, again, is unfortunately quite high.


~Jon

[Danderman]

It is surely true that rockets are hard.

I applaud all the teams that are working on the various prizes out there, and hope that someone will actually win the prizes. Having said that, one of my pet peeves is that when new teams emerge, they generally mention very early dates for their first space launch. I can remember when John Carmack, back in '01 or so at Space Access suggested that Armadillo would be flying suborbital missions within a year or so. And there have been some very aggressive schedules posted on various web sites.

Given the problems with Spacex Falcon I, I am thinking that the Google prize for a rover on the Moon by 2012 is becoming more fantastic. With a year between launch attempts, we may not see a successful Falcon I by 2010, and the LV would still not be considered truly operational at that point.