Comments [1] posted: Nov 02, 2009 R. Lewis

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.


      Comments [1]
tags: [X-Prize]


Wednesday, November 04, 2009 4:03:14 AM UTC
Well, looks like they have already awarded the money to Masten. If you ask me, this is long term damage to the integrity of both NASA and the XPrize foundation. Future competitions will be tainted by the additional risk of frankly unreliable judges. I don't think companies are going to want to invest large amounts of money in R&D competing for a prize that can be essentially stolen at the whim of the judges.

Also, awarding the prize so quickly to me seems a bit shady. I would not be surprised if later investigation reveals there was some serious fould play here.
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