Last night, amid rain, wind, and near freezing temperatures, Virgin Galactic unveiled space ship two. The rocket plane, strapepd to the White Knight Two launch plane, was roled out on the runway before fans, future space travelers, and Arnold "the governator" Schwarzenegger.

And, something else amazing happened to the space tourism industry, competition! While Armadillo continues to develop their suborbital space tourism vehicle, Blue Origin has begun flights on their VTOL rocket which could also carry space tourism passengers.  Space tourism competition is really heating up.  And, of course, nothing drives inovation like competition.  Within a decade we coudl see real, viable comercial space flight.  Rock on!

Well, congratulations to Masten Space Systems on completing the NGLLC, landing within an average of 25 cms from the target. That beats Armadillo's average accuracy of 90 cm, but the Judges allowed Masten an extra day to complete the challenge, after a fire damaged the vehicle half way through the first attempt on Wednesday.

In my opinion, Armadillo was robbed. Not only should the fire "count" as part of the attempt (a real lander would not get a second chance), Armadillo would have had much better accuracy themselves were it not for their own malfunction, which impacted the roll thrusters and left them with impaired maneuverability on their first attempt. Although, Armadillo did finish with enough time to attempt another flight. they chose not to, so their accuracy stands as is. But, the important thing is the fire would have and should have left Masten unable to complete the challenge, had the Judges not allowed them a third day. Bad call.

The only real downside is that Armadillo stands to lose half a million dollars of prize money because of this decision, that is definitely NOT fair. Maybe Masten and Armadillo could have a run off for first prize.

Armadillo Aerospace Claim Level 2 NGLLC Prize

Congratulations John Carmack & Armadillo! This is a huge accomplishment, which again underscores the difference between the traditional NASA big government/big aerospace approach versus getting out of the way and letting real innovators build the future from the ground up.

Level 2 requires the rocket to fly for 180 seconds before landing precisely on a simulated lunar surface constructed with craters and boulders. The minimum flight times are calculated so that the Level 2 mission closely simulates the power needed to perform a real descent from lunar orbit down to the surface of the Moon. First place is a prize of $1 million while second is $500,000.

This one is just cool:

In the spirit of the new year, I have compiled a list of the 10 coolest topics covered last year in the Deep Space Report

1. 3 planets orbiting other stars were imaged, Fomalhaut, HR8799, and beta pictoris, in that order.
   
   
   
2. The discovery of an ancient shoreline provided proof that Mars once had an ocean of liquid water in the northern hemisphere.
   
   
   
3. Phoenix detected actual snow falling from the sky on Mars.
   
4. Armadillo Aerospace wins Lunar Lander Challenge level 1, and also announces partnerships with the Rocket Racing League to provide rocket motors for their racers, and also work on a joint venture to provide commercial space tourism flights.
   
   
   
   
   
5. India successfully sends Chandrayaan-1 to the moon.
   
6. China send's it's first moon probe too, Chang'e-1
   
7. Catalina Sky Survey program detected a meteorite before impact.
   
   
   
8. A spectacular fireball meteorite was seen over Alberta, Canada.
   
   
   
   
9. Cassinni makes 2 flybys of Encleadus, the first passing within just 16 miles of the tiny moon.
   
10. NASA tests out several new lunar rover designs, including ATHLETE and PILOT
    
    

A Danish company, Copenhagen Suborbitals, announced plans to build yet another rocket which will take passengers to the edge of space at 100km.  Currently they are testing just a rocket motor.  Now, commercial space tourism is GREAT, but did they see what companies like Scaled Composites (Burt Rutan, space ship one, Virgin Galactic, those guys) and even Armadillo Aerospace have already accomplished?

On the other hand, there design is soooo simple.  They say they are going to use epoxy as a propellant and LOX as an oxidizer, but I don't see why you couldn't use NOx. 
Looks like any idiot willing to blow them selves up could build one.

Sounds like a mythbusters episode to me.

Good luck!

After winning the Level 1 LLC, this weekend, Armadillo Aerospace's John Carmack gave an interesting interview.

In the category of what's next for Armadillo, they are obviously working on the Rocket Racing League racers.  They are also planning to start work on the new suborbital space tourism vehicle.  This is going to allow them to do some larger run fabrication of the new rocket motors.  They've also been working with NASA on a LOX / Methane rocket motor.  It turns out getting combustion with methane is allot harder than they expected, which is counter intuitive because it is a gas and should combust more easily.  The problem is both the LOX and methane are very very cold to start with so it turns out to be harder to get them to begin combustion.

They are hoping to start work on the crewed version for commercial flights right away.  "Megapixel" will essentially be a scaled up version of the mod/quad design.  It will probably have 8 fixed mount motors and achieve attitude control by adjusting thrust to each motor, which will be offset slightly from each other.  The crew cabin will eventually be a fully transparent sphere which holds one or two passengers and offers unobstructed 360 degree views.  They are hoping to be able to try an unmanned suborbital test flight next year with existing hardware, and be able to launch manned test flights by 2010.  They've also had allot of interest in trying to break the high altitude sky diving record, a so called "space jump" above 120,000 feet.  They think they could actually try that next year with existing hardware, but obviously they'd need someone with "the right stuff" to attempt the jump.

On the business side, they are hoping to be able to offer flights for $100,000 or less.  That is 1/2 what Virgin galactic is asking, but of course the RRL / Armadillo offering is a vertical take off and powered vertical landing.  Many people just won't ever be comfortable taking off and landing without wings, so obviously there is plenty of room in the market for both offerings.

Things are definitely going well for Armadillo Aerospace.  Carmack commented that they are now operating profitably, even without the prize money from winning the LLC, which is just gravy.  He also shared some interesting views on different approaches to engineering.  Armadillo has always strived to make the engineering process more like software.  You try something, it fails, you learn, and make improvements.  It is an iterative process that is very hands on.  The NASA approach is much more cost intensive, because they spend more time on tests and simulations.  Ironically, the goal of the tests and simulations are to save cost, because they idea is the hardware is so expensive you want to learn all you can by doing simulations.  But, in the long run, you learn allot more, and learn more cheaply, by building test vehicles and maybe blowing them up occasionally.  He says it takes an engineer to build a bridge that will just barely not fall down.  The typical NASA approach is to try to engineer the best vehicle possible, but if you try to build a perfect vehicle it will never happen.  That's why the Armadillo approach is so much more effective and less expensive at the same time.  As a point in fact, before yesterday's launch they went at the vehicle with a hack saw, removing several pounds of extra structure they probably didn't need in the first place.  Of course they didn't need to lose the weight, they had plenty of fuel to spare at the end, but the point is this is experimental science.  Every flight is a test flight, and you always learn and adapt as you go.

As a closing comment, he said once they have the suborbital platform essentially as a solved problem, they will be able to scale it up to deliver a payload to the 100 km mark.  From there they could easily launch a LOX / methane second stage to possibly achieve orbit and deliver a sputnik like test platform into orbit.

More breaking news, it is not yet official, but Armadillo successfully completed the second 90 second test flight to win the LLC level 1.  Congratulations Armadillo!

What was amazing is on the second flight, the launch aborted twice, and they just restarted the count immediately.  I think the first abort was an ignition failure, and the second abort was a combustion failure.  Looks like they got ignition and then had a flameout.

PS, you heard it here first

UPDATE:

It IS official, Armadillo won the level 1 challenge!

Here is the video of just the winning flight:

Here is a longer video of the whole level 1 competition with Peter Diamandis:

Breaking news, at the Northrup Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge, New Mexico governor Bill Richardson announced a private partnership between the Rocket Racing League and Armadillo Aerospace to offer commercial space flights from Spaceport America at Las Cruces, New Mexico.  Test flights will begin next year.  The concept vehicle will have 8 rocket motors, using the same engine developed by Armadillo for the LLC, with a full 360 degree view crew cabin (looks like either glass or polycarbonate sphere).  Rocket Racing League CEO Peter Diamandis also made an appearance.

Mercury

After it's successful encounter with Mercury a couple of weeks ago, Messenger has increased it's velocity relative to the sun to 63 km/s.  This is the second fastest NASA spacecraft in history, the fastest being Helios 2 back in the 70s.

Earth

The IBEX spacecraft was launched on a Pegasus rocket last week.  Pegasus is an aircraft launched rocket.  IBEX's mission is to observe the boundary of our sun's magnetosphere.  IBEX will use it's own solid rocket boosters to achieve a 100,000 mile earth orbit before beginning the science phase of it's mission.

Also, 9 teams (including Armadillo Aerospace, see RRL article last week) will compete in Northrup Grumman $2 million Lunar Lander Challenge this week.  Here is a video from last year:

Mars

New observations by ESA's Mars Express spacecraft have been used to more accurately measure the mass and density of Phobos.  With a revised density of 1.85 g/cc, which is significantly lower than the density or Martian rock at 2.7-3.3 g/cc, the conclusion is Phobos is most likely a rubble pile.  It is also likely that the mass of Phobos contains significant quantities of water ice, which of course has a density of 1 g/cc.  Of course, it would be nice to obtain a sample of Phobos, and a Russian mission planned to launch next year may do exactly that.  However, with Russia's less than spectacular success record with missions to Mars, I would not bet on seeing those samples return to earth any time soon.

Opportunity is continuing on it's journey to Endeavour Crater, taking one last lap around Victoria first.  Also, a couple of weeks ago, on sol 1671, Oppy acquired this panorama (assembled by Hortonheardawho)

Saturn

After the spectacular encounter with Enceladus last week, Cassini has still not posted any details or results from the encounter.  They did post some raw images from 5000km+, but I was hoping for some extreme closeups.  So far the hihgest res images are these images from August, at 545 km:

Now that is darn good, you can practically see the polar bears and leopard seals lounging on the ice,  but if they got better images in the most recent encounter I'd love to see them.

Deep Space

A new comet was discovered last week, w00t!

Deep Space Report 1.3

It's only a matter of time before Miller, Coors, and Bud all pick up sponsorships for the Rocket Racing League, which has now been approved by the FAA.

http://www.space.com/news/081016-rocket-racing-approval.html

What's interesting is the RRL also decided to use an alcohol and liquid oxygen (LOX) rocket motor developed by Doom software developer John Carmack's company,  Armadillo Aerospace, instead of LOX/kerosene motors developed by XCOR.  RRL CEO Granger Whitelaw indicated the XCOR motors did not meet RRL standards for "safety, reliability, reusability and performance."  Armadillo Aerospace was originally a competitor for the XPrize, but more recently they have been very active developing new rocket motors and an advanced automated VTOL vehicle called Pixel.  They have participated in numerous competitions and there capabilities have been improving with each new project.

You've got to see this video of an RRL racer equipped with an Armadillo motor doped to produce a brilliant red exhaust plume.

Some other videos:

Horizontal test of Armadillo Aerospace LOX/alcohol motor

Rocket racing prepares for take-off

Flying Cars, Jetpacks and Rocket Racers, Oh My!

The Experimental Aircraft Association Annual AirVenture Show in Oshkosh Wisconsin.  Which includes exactly what the title of the Popular Science video says it does.  Flying cars  (although we don't see it fly), jetpacks (although its actually a prop-pack not jet and it only "flies" 15 feet and under control of two guys on the ground)

The Rocket Racer section sounds pretty cool and they had one up in the air screaming along on it's rocket.  And the PR guy looked a little like another PR guy I know, talking about the business plan and the consumer.

As a very interesting side note:  The Experimental Aircraft Association's site has been partially pwned!  At there very same time as one of your peaks of popularity.  An article in Pop-Sci, linked via Instapundit.  They just need to remove the index.html file from their server, it's not the default document so this is a rookie pwn.

...in retrospect after a bit of researching, this is in fact a fail!  The hacker thought he knew what he was doing but his weak skillz are exposed.  He didn't replace the default document.  Only index.html (not even default.html)

Screenshot.

Rookie.

I haven't been following the Lunar X-Prize much except as part of the remarkable private space program genesis we are seeing right now.  But it appears from this discussion that the X-Prize Foundation (XPF) is doing a poor job in managing the contest.

But I hadn't counted on the X Prize Foundation, which has done an extremely effective job of administering the contest to make it harder and harder to win.

The XPF has apparently driven out one of the most innovative teams.  And one that had a good chance of winning.  Team Cringely is so confident of its mission plan and technology design that it is continuing full-speed ahead without the carrot of a $20MM prize for winning.

Bureaucracy is as bureaucracy does.  pity.

Look! In the Sky. It’s a Rocket Racer.

eh...what?  It wasn't you?  Oh it must of been one of the other many daredevil astronaut/test-pilot types that read the rivet.  It's one of our core demographics you know...the astronaut.

Racers in rocket-powered aircraft will fly four laps around a five-mile “track” at anywhere from 150 feet to 1,500 feet above the ground. The planes, designed to fly at 340 miles an hour, will start side by side, two at a time. The pilots include professional test pilots who received their training in the military and a former astronaut.

This is a great idea...

Red Bull Air Race already has a competition with acrobatic prop planes.  I guess that isn't hairy enough.  I mean 240+ miles an hour, doing flips and stuff...not enough.

Add rockets.

Race 'em together.

50% faster.  100% louder.  100% more dangerous...what's not to like.

...Commercial...Space...Station...

Look, I don't mean to keep talking about all this accelerating change and stuff, but I really think we're on the verge of something here.

1. We have Virgin Galactic releasing their spaceship design and preparing for launches at some undetermined time.

2. We have SpaceX developing a new cost effective rocket system with the intent to be the only ISS supportable US based space system at the time the Shuttle fleet is finally grounded.  They have already had two launches and have several scheduled this year.

And now this news from Bigelow.

Bigelow Aerospace and Denver-based United Launch Alliance (ULA) have been working together for over a year studying what it would take to human-rate the Atlas 5 rocket. Industry sources said Bigelow Aerospace is ready to place an order that includes six launches starting in 2011 to begin assembly and early operation of the new station.

We live in unprecedented times in so many ways this is merely one more manifestation of the change that is taking place all around us.

If the X-Prize worked to get the private commercial space race kicked off and it was only $10 Million, what would a payout of $1 BILLION do for results. 

This is an ambitious set of problems laid out by the Victory Project. 

To the first person(s) that solves any of these Problems:

1. Develop a cure for breast cancer.
2. Develop a cure for diabetes.
3. Reduce greenhouse emissions from petroleum powered automobiles by 95% without increasing the cost of a normal car more than 5%.
4. Achieve 150 miles per gallon of gasoline in a 3,000 lb. car, using EPA standards; without increasing the cost of a normal car more than 10%.

Is it big?   Yes.

Is it different?   Yes.

Will it work?   Yes.

This is inspiring.  But some of these might take the full Billion dollar prize to develop.

They're looking for donations, feel free to contribute.