Lucrative liftoffs lined up
Posted: Tuesday, October 23, 2007 11:34 PM by Alan Boyle
The space shuttle Discovery's flight to the international space station isn't the only NASA-backed mission lifting off this week: In Utah, a laser-powered robot just barely missed winning $500,000, while a lunar lander prototype has gotten the all-clear to go after a chunk of the $2 million that the space agency is putting up at this weekend's X Prize Cup in New Mexico.
The near miss came at the Space Elevator Games, which are aimed at developing beam-powered robots and super-strong tethers that could someday be used in interplanetary missions. Eventually, such technologies could open the way for developing a space-elevator system for transporting payloads into orbit cheaply.
Last year, the University of Saskatchewan's robot climber, powered by focused sunlight, came oh-so-close to winning the top prize in the NASA-supported Beam Power Challenge. This year, in Farmington, Utah, the same team of students and alumni showed off a next-generation climber that was powered by laser. To be in the running for a prize, the contraption had to pull itself up a fabric ribbon at a rate of at least 2 meters (6.5 feet) per second.
Saskatchewan's robot made it up to the top in 54 seconds during its best run on Monday - a performance that would have won the prize last year's best. Unfortunately, the bar was raised over the past year. Saskatchewan missed the required minimum pace by just a few seconds - although the ribbon was still getting its final official measurement on Tuesday.
There were likewise no winners in the other NASA-backed challenge at the Space Elevator Games, known as the Tether Challenge. The unwon prize money, which amounts to $1 million, will roll over to next year's games.
Check out Ted Semon's Space Elevator Blog for the full story from Utah.
The Utah contests were part of NASA's Centennial Challenges program, modeled after the $10 million Ansari X Prize for personal spaceflight and the Pentagon's prize program for autonomous road vehicles (which is building up to its next running next week). NASA has paid out prize money in two Centennial Challenges so far: $200,000 for the Astronaut Glove Challenge and $250,000 for the Personal Air Vehicle Challenge.
Yet another big check might be written in New Mexico this weekend, when rocket-powered landers will be put to the test in the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge.
Texas-based Armadillo Aerospace is considered the favorite to win at least one of the prizes. Like Saskatchewan's robot-building team, the Armadillo rocket-building team fell just short of finishing in the money last year. Since then, Armadillo has made much progress and also suffered setbacks.
A big milestone came last week, when Armadillo's prototype rocket ships had to fly qualifying runs to get their launch permits from the Federal Aviation Administration for this weekend's X Prize Cup. The qualifying flight was a success, as shown in this Armadillo MPG video clip. As a result, this week the FAA announced that the permit was awarded.
At one time, nine teams were vying for the Lunar Lander Challenge money - but seven of the teams bowed out, and the Acuity Technologies team seems unlikely to get the required clearance by Saturday. That would leave Armadillo Aerospace as the sole competitor.
Armadillo's MOD lander would go after the $350,000 offered in the Level 1 contest - which calls for making a rocket-powered trip from one pad to another and back, spanning 100 meters (yards) and rising to 50 meters for at least 90 seconds of hang time. The Pixel lander would go after the $1 million top prize, which requires 180 seconds of hang time and sets out a more rugged lunar-style terrain for landing.
Check out Clark Lindsey's RLV and Space Transport News for more on the buildup to the Northrop Grumman Lander Challenge.
The lunar-lander contest is this year's X Prize headliner, but it's not the only attraction at the Wirefly X Prize Cup, which is being held this year at Holloman Air Force Base near Alamogordo, N.M. There'll be rocket demonstrations, airplane flyovers and space exhibits galore.
The festivities kick off on Wednesday and Thursday with the International Symposium on Personal Spaceflight. Over the next few days you can expect to hear much more about the push to put regular people into space - including updates on Rocketplane's suborbital spaceship and the privately backed Teachers in Space program.
Watch this space for the daily rocket reports from New Mexico.
