It was looking a little bleak there for a while about whether anyone would be able to compete for the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge: Flight International posted a story with the discouraging title “FAA could call halt to NASA lunar lander challenge”, and, more ominously, Leonard David reported that Armadillo Aerospace “ran into snags” at the Texas-New Mexico border last night. However, Robin at Lunar Lander Challenge reports that not only did the Armadillo team make it to Las Cruces, they hope to be able to compete in both levels of the challenge. They plan to make an attempt at the Level 1 challenge on Friday morning and, if that and a “pre-qualifying” flight later in the day are successful, go for Level 2 on Saturday. Of course, they still need to get their permit first, and that apparently won’t happen until after a test flight Thursday.
Now I’m off to transport myself to Las Cruces (with a little help from an airline and rental car company)…
Dear Mr. Foust,
My wife and I are covering the X Prize for the Russian edition of the Newsweek magazine. I am also a regular reader of your Space Review and Personal Spaceflight blogs. We are based in San Francisco and will be in NM starting Thursday night. Is there any way we could talk? If it is possible, how can we find you on Friday or Saturday?
Best regards,
Gene Vorobyov
I’ve already contacted Gene privately, but if anyone else at the X Prize Cup has a desire to see me (don’t know why; there should be enough going on there that you shouldn’t be that bored), drop me an email at jeff [AT] personalspaceflight.info.