March 2007 Armadillo Aerospace update

[jimvela]

Armadillo has a new  update up:

http://armadilloaerospace.com/n.x/Armadillo/Home/News?news_id=344

[Danderman]

I have to give John Carmack a lot of credit for gutting it out for many years on his project. Although he was overly optimistic at the start, claiming to be flying in space within 18 months, the track he is on now could lead to interesting robotic suborbital transportation in the very near future.

[jimvela]

Danderman - 9/3/2007  1:58 PM
I have to give John Carmack a lot of credit for gutting it out for many years on his project.

I don't know them, but I root for them- I'd love to see these guys keep going on the path that they are on.

Plus, how can anyone not root for a team with a cute cartoon armadillo for a mascot? :-)p

[ericr]

jimvela - 9/3/2007  5:39 PM
I don't know them, but I root for them- I'd love to see these guys keep going on the path that they are on.

Plus, how can anyone not root for a team with a cute cartoon armadillo for a mascot? :-)p

Yes, it was sad to learn of the Armadillo hats, shirts, etc. featuring the mascot AFTER they quit selling them.  :-(

[ericr]

jimvela - 9/3/2007  5:39 PM

Danderman - 9/3/2007  1:58 PM
I have to give John Carmack a lot of credit for gutting it out for many years on his project.

I don't know them, but I root for them- I'd love to see these guys keep going on the path that they are on.

Plus, how can anyone not root for a team with a cute cartoon armadillo for a mascot? :-)p

< hopefully it's OK to post this link - If not, just let me know and I'll edit/delete the message >

If any of you would like to root for Armadillo where they will actually hear it, you can try out the Official Armadillo Q&A thread.   It's regularly visited by John Carmack and crew.

http://www.spacefellowship.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?t=396

People will post questions now and again and it's not unusual to find rather detailed answers from the Armadillo team.

[jongoff]

jimvela - 9/3/2007  3:39 PM

Danderman - 9/3/2007  1:58 PM
I have to give John Carmack a lot of credit for gutting it out for many years on his project.

I don't know them, but I root for them- I'd love to see these guys keep going on the path that they are on.

John and his team are really starting to hit their stride.  It's ironic that they're both some of our best friends, and most direct competitors in the industry.  Hopefully we can start catching up to them in the near future.

~Jon

[braddock]

Highlight:
One of the test flights this month was done in absolutely crazy wind conditions.  We measured steady winds of 30 mph, with gusts significantly higher.  The fire station had seen gusts as high as 55 knots (63 mph) earlier in the day.  Flights were being canceled out of DFW airport due to the wind. Pixel didn't care a bit.  Almost two minutes of hovering there, completely unperturbed. As Neil put it, “Pixel laughs at 40 mph winds!”

But no video this time!  

They also have almost all the permits to do full 180 second lunar lander challenge test flights at Oklahoma Spaceport.  They are hoping to do a full test flight of the challenge in April.

An interesting quote from John Carmack on the Space Fellowship forums yesterday:
"We will absolutely have a vehicle capable of carrying a person to 100km this year. Even if we have a significant performance shortfall, we could stage one module off of a four module cluster. Unless we get a customer willing to put up actual money, we need to focus on winning the lunar lander challenge prizes this year, which means we probably won't do any free-flights more aggressive than the LLC flight profiles. I still fully expect to lose a couple vehicles as we push to 100km flights. "

[Danderman]

braddock - 10/3/2007  6:40 AM

An interesting quote from John Carmack on the Space Fellowship forums yesterday:
"We will absolutely have a vehicle capable of carrying a person to 100km this year. Even if we have a significant performance shortfall, we could stage one module off of a four module cluster. Unless we get a customer willing to put up actual money, we need to focus on winning the lunar lander challenge prizes this year, which means we probably won't do any free-flights more aggressive than the LLC flight profiles. I still fully expect to lose a couple vehicles as we push to 100km flights. "

Well, having a vehicle capable of carrying a person to 100 km AND also expected some of those vehicles to be lost during flight might seem a little mutually exclusive - one would hope that the capability of carrying a person to 100 km might have as an inherent component the ability to perform the mission safely.  So, what I would imagine is that AA would fly  that type of mission robotically.

[bad_astra]

Danderman - 10/3/2007  1:16 PM

braddock - 10/3/2007  6:40 AM

An interesting quote from John Carmack on the Space Fellowship forums yesterday:
"We will absolutely have a vehicle capable of carrying a person to 100km this year. Even if we have a significant performance shortfall, we could stage one module off of a four module cluster. Unless we get a customer willing to put up actual money, we need to focus on winning the lunar lander challenge prizes this year, which means we probably won't do any free-flights more aggressive than the LLC flight profiles. I still fully expect to lose a couple vehicles as we push to 100km flights. "

Well, having a vehicle capable of carrying a person to 100 km AND also expected some of those vehicles to be lost during flight might seem a little mutually exclusive - one would hope that the capability of carrying a person to 100 km might have as an inherent component the ability to perform the mission safely.  So, what I would imagine is that AA would fly  that type of mission robotically.

Armadillo has made no concrete mention of actually flying anyone on these vehicles, since the X-Prize

[meiza]

I bet for actual people carrying flights there'd have to be more testing and backups for emergencies like a passive vehicle stabilization method (drogue) and parachute for the passenger.
But they aren't saying they will fly people, they use the "person to 100 km" as a performance metric. They'll do plenty of uncrewed flights anyway. The vehicle can fly autonomously with gps and inertial guidance, and it actually flies better than with manual. (If given the right location to land!)

What few people know is, Armadillo flew a person already many years back but that was a peroxide rocket and the altitude was just a few meters. Controlled hover anyway. They've changed development paths many times since... Remember that the lunar lander challenge rules were finalized quite late and the Armadillo team made the quad rockets Pixel and Texel on quite short notice.

What they're essentially showing is good problem solving skills. That is even more important than just the rocket they are currently flying (although that is a huge asset itself too...)

Having these rockets hover solves a huge segment of the problem piechart of 100 km rocket flights. Engine thrust, burn time, total impulse, guidance, control etc... All these are very similar in a long hover and translation as in a 100 km flight. There are many differences of course too. So there is a lot of fun still left