Lunar Lander Challenge
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The Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge (NG-LLC) was a competition funded by
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...
's
Centennial Challenges The Centennial Challenges are NASA space competition inducement prize contests for non-government-funded technological achievements by American teams. Origin NASA's Centennial Challenge Program (CCP) directly engages the public at large in the ...
program. The competition offered a series of prizes for teams that launch a vertical takeoff/vertical landing (VTVL) rocket that achieved the total
delta-v Delta-''v'' (also known as "change in velocity"), symbolized as and pronounced , as used in spacecraft flight dynamics, is a measure of the impulse per unit of spacecraft mass that is needed to perform a maneuver such as launching from or l ...
needed for a vehicle to move between the surface of the Moon and its orbit. The multi-level competition was conducted by the
X PRIZE Foundation XPRIZE Foundation is a non-profit organization that designs and hosts public competitions intended to encourage technological development. The XPRIZE mission is to bring about "radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity" through incentiv ...
, with sponsorship from the
Northrop Grumman Corporation Northrop Grumman Corporation is an American multinational aerospace and defense company. With 97,000 employees and an annual revenue in excess of $40 billion, it is one of the world's largest weapons manufacturers and military technology provi ...
who ran the ongoing competition. The prize purses were paid by NASA. It was held annually at the X PRIZE Cup, making its debut at the 2006 Wirefly X PRIZE Cup in October, 2006, until 2009 when the prize purse was awarded to
Masten Space Systems Masten Space Systems was an aerospace manufacturer startup company in Mojave, California (formerly in Santa Clara, California) that was developing a line of vertical takeoff, vertical landing (VTVL) rockets, initially for uncrewed research s ...
and Armadillo Aerospace.


Competition rules

The competition is divided into two levels. Both levels require teams to demonstrate control of their vehicle by flying to an altitude of more than , flying laterally for , and landing on a pad. For level 1, this pad is a simple diameter circle; for level 2, it is a simulated lunar surface, complete with
crater A crater is a landform consisting of a hole or depression (geology), depression on a planetary surface, usually caused either by an object hitting the surface, or by geological activity on the planet. A crater has classically been described ...
s and
boulder In geology, a boulder (or rarely bowlder) is a rock fragment with size greater than in diameter. Smaller pieces are called cobbles and pebbles. While a boulder may be small enough to move or roll manually, others are extremely massive. In ...
s. After completing this first flight, the vehicle can then be refueled, and must then fly a second leg back to the original starting point. Each flight must meet a required minimum flight time of 90 seconds for level 1 and 180 seconds for level 2. For each level, the two flights along with any necessary preparation must be accomplished within a short 150-minute time period. Each Level offered a first- and second-place prize. Level 1 awarded a first place prize purse of $350,000 and a $150,000 purse for second place. The more difficult level 2 awarded first place prize of $1 million and a $500,000 second place prize.


2006

2006 was the first year of the competition. It was announced on May 5, 2006, giving teams only a few months to prepare for the late-October competition. Although four teams officially registered for the competition, only one was able to receive the required permit from the FAA before the event. Armadillo Aerospace arrived at the 2006 event, held at
Las Cruces International Airport Las Cruces International Airport is a city-owned, public airport nine miles west of the central business district of Las Cruces, in Doña Ana County, New Mexico. It is in the National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2019–23 which ca ...
in
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, with two matching vehicles, named Pixel and Texel. In the end, Armadillo made three attempts to win the prize, each one using Pixel. In all three cases, difficult landings left them short of the mission requirements—on two occasions, rough landings caused damage to the vehicle; on a third, the vehicle failed to land completely on the target pad. Team Armadillo left without any prize money, but still had made history by performing the first successful flight of a private vehicle of this class—as well as the first flight under the FAA's new Experimental Permit.


2007

The 2007 Lunar Lander Challenge took place on October 27–28 at the
Holloman Air Force Base Holloman Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base established in 1942 located six miles (10 km) southwest of the central business district of Alamogordo, which is the county seat of Otero County, New Mexico, United States. The b ...
in
New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...
. Micro-Space, one of the teams registered in 2007, had to retreat from the competition after they missed a mandatory meeting. The only team to compete was again Armadillo Aerospace. Armadillo entered their MOD vehicle for level 1. They attempted six flights, but never completed the full profile. A flight on October 27 ended with the vehicle crashing on the return flight. Their final flight attempt on October 28 caused a fire on the launch pad. Team leader
John Carmack John D. Carmack II (born August 21, 1970) is an American computer programmer and video game developer. He co-founded the video game company id Software and was the lead programmer of its 1990s games ''Commander Keen'', ''Wolfenstein 3D'', ''Do ...
expressed his disappointment, saying "today is officially a bad day when it comes to our vehicle."


2008

The 2008 Lunar Lander Challenge took place October 24–25, back at the Las Cruces International Airport. Two teams competed. Because the X PRIZE Cup was canceled for 2008, the Lunar Lander Challenge was held separately, and was open only to members of the press. It was, however, broadcast live by the official event webcast, SpaceVidcast. The only teams that flew were Armadillo Aerospace and TrueZer0. Both received waivers from the FAA to fly experimental rockets. TrueZer0 attempted level 1, achieved hover, then lost roll control and was aborted and crashed. Armadillo had an unsuccessful first attempt at level 1, and landed early due to inadequate thrust. On their second attempt they completed the first leg, but the second leg was cut short by the FAA closing the flight window. The second leg was held in the afternoon, and they were able to take the Level 1 top prize of $350,000. Armadillo made an attempt at the level 2 prize on October 25, but had a fuel valve failure, burned through the engine nozzle, and rolled the vehicle at takeoff. They decided not to make another attempt.


2009

The method of competing in Lunar Lander Challenge was modified for the 2009 competition season to enable teams to compete from different locations, rather than at a single location, as was done in previous seasons. Instead, judges travelled to a location near the applicants' home base. Prize competition attempts were attempted over the course of several days during the LLC season of July 20 to October 31. The Lunar Lander Challenge concluded this season with the following flights and results: * Armadillo Aerospace made their attempt for the Level 2 purse from
Caddo Mills, Texas Caddo Mills ( ) is a rural city in Hunt County, Texas located at the western edge of Northeast Texas. The population was 1,495 at the 2020 census, up from 1,338 at the 2010 census. History Before settlers arrived, the area was the site of a Cadd ...
, on September 12 and 13, and successfully qualified for the Level 2 prize. The judges would later rule the accuracy of this flight as 2nd place for Level 2. * Masten Space Systems attempted to win second prize for Level 1 on September 15–16, but aborted after first flight. They successfully flew both legs (Level 1) on October 7 from the Mojave Air & Space Port. The judges would later rule the accuracy of this flight as second place for Level 1. * BonNovA announced it intended to attempt to claim the Level 1 prize in Cantil, California, on Oct 26th-27th, but cancelled the weekend before the scheduled date.Rocket Contest Reaches End Game
NBC News, October 26, 2009
*
Masten Space Systems Masten Space Systems was an aerospace manufacturer startup company in Mojave, California (formerly in Santa Clara, California) that was developing a line of vertical takeoff, vertical landing (VTVL) rockets, initially for uncrewed research s ...
attempted the Level 2 flights on Oct 28-30 from Mojave. After problems with the computer aborting the launch, a fire after one attempt and overnight repairs, the "Xoie" rocket flew both legs and qualified for Level 2. The judges would later rule the accuracy of this flight as 1st place for Level 2, and awarded the Level Two prize to Masten. * Unreasonable Rocket (Paul Breed, father & son team) attempted to claim purses in both competition levels from Cantil, California on Oct 30 to Nov 1, and did make an 84-second pad-to-pad flight on the Level 1 competition, but did not successfully complete either level.


List of competitors

* Armadillo Aerospace * BonNova * Paragon Labs, now www.paragonspace.com * Team Phoenicia * TrueZer0 * Unreasonable Rocket *
Masten Space Systems Masten Space Systems was an aerospace manufacturer startup company in Mojave, California (formerly in Santa Clara, California) that was developing a line of vertical takeoff, vertical landing (VTVL) rockets, initially for uncrewed research s ...
*
SpeedUp In computer architecture, speedup is a number that measures the relative performance of two systems processing the same problem. More technically, it is the improvement in speed of execution of a task executed on two similar architectures with ...


Winners


Level 1

*First prize: Armadillo Aerospace 24 October 2008 *Second prize:
Masten Space Systems Masten Space Systems was an aerospace manufacturer startup company in Mojave, California (formerly in Santa Clara, California) that was developing a line of vertical takeoff, vertical landing (VTVL) rockets, initially for uncrewed research s ...
7 October 2009


Level 2

*First prize:
Masten Space Systems Masten Space Systems was an aerospace manufacturer startup company in Mojave, California (formerly in Santa Clara, California) that was developing a line of vertical takeoff, vertical landing (VTVL) rockets, initially for uncrewed research s ...
30 October 2009 *Second prize: Armadillo Aerospace 12 September 2009


See also

*
VTVL Vertical takeoff, vertical landing (VTVL) is a form of takeoff and landing for rockets. Multiple VTVL craft have flown. A notable VTVL vehicle was the Apollo Lunar Module which delivered the first humans to the Moon. Building on the decades of ...
*
Blue Origin Blue Origin Enterprises, L.P. is an American space technology company headquartered in Kent, Washington. The company operates the suborbital New Shepard rocket and the heavy-lift New Glenn rocket. In addition to producing engines for its own ...
*
Blue Origin New Shepard New Shepard is a fully reusable sub-orbital launch vehicle developed for space tourism by Blue Origin. The vehicle is named after Alan Shepard, who became the first American to travel into space and the fifth person to walk on the Moon. The v ...
*
McDonnell Douglas DC-X The DC-X, short for Delta Clipper or Delta Clipper Experimental, was an uncrewed prototype of a reusable single-stage-to-orbit launch vehicle built by McDonnell Douglas in conjunction with the United States Department of Defense's Strategic ...
*
Lockheed Martin X-33 The Lockheed Martin X-33 was a proposed uncrewed, sub-scale technology demonstrator suborbital spaceplane that was developed for a period in the 1990s. The X-33 was a technology demonstrator for the VentureStar orbital spaceplane, which was pl ...
*
VentureStar VentureStar was a single-stage-to-orbit reusable launch system proposed by Lockheed Martin and funded by the U.S. government. The goal was to replace the Space Shuttle by developing a re-usable spaceplane that could launch satellites into orbit a ...
* Armadillo Aerospace * Interorbital Systems * Quad (rocket) * Zarya * Kankoh-maru *
Reusable Vehicle Testing The Reusable Vehicle Testing (RVT) project was conducted by the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) from 1998 until 2003. The project involved a series of experimental vehicles to test repeated flights of a reusable rocket. Four complete vehicles were d ...
program of the Japanese Space Agency
JAXA The is the Japanese national air and space agency. Through the merger of three previously independent organizations, JAXA was formed on 1 October 2003. JAXA is responsible for research, technology development and launch of satellites into o ...
* List of private spaceflight companies - A compiled list of private spaceflight companies *
Pressure-fed engine (rocket) The pressure-fed engine is a class of rocket engine designs. A separate gas supply, usually helium, pressurizes the propellant tanks to force fuel and oxidizer to the combustion chamber. To maintain adequate flow, the tank pressures must exceed th ...
*
Google Lunar X PRIZE The Google Lunar X Prize (GLXP) was a 2007–2018 inducement prize space competition organized by the X Prize Foundation, and sponsored by Google. The challenge called for privately funded teams to be the first to land a lunar rover on t ...
*
NewSpace Private spaceflight is any spaceflight development that is not conducted by a government agency, such as NASA or ESA. During the early decades of the Space Age, the government space agencies of the Soviet Union and United States pione ...
*
Project M ''Project M'' is a mod (video gaming), mod of the 2008 fighting game ''Super Smash Bros. Brawl'' for the Wii, created by the community group known as the Project M Development Team (PMDT; previously known as the Project M Back Room). It is des ...
- NASA's VTVL test vehicle, using a design from this Challenge * Project Morpheus - a real lunar lander project from NASA, son of Project M and this Challenge *
List of space technology awards This list of space technology awards is an index to articles about notable awards related to space technology. This includes awards for development of spacecraft, satellites, space stations, and support infrastructure, equipment, and procedures. ...


References


External links


Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060706195631/http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2005/oct/HQ_05341_Centennial_Challenges.html , date=2006-07-06
Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge 2008 Webcast
NASA groups, organizations, and centers Private spaceflight Space-related awards Challenge awards VTVL rockets