Just got word (at 9:15 am MDT) that Armadillo is about 15 minutes away from fully pressurizing their LOX tanks, at which time they’ll be ready to fly.

Just after 8:30 am MDT Armadillo started their second attempt to win the Level One Lunar Lander Challenge, trigging a 2.5-hour launch window. They’re in the process of taking Pixel out to the launch site right now.

Otherwise it has been pretty quiet here, with no launches or engine tests so far this morning. That will change in a few minutes with a Tripoli amateur high-powered rocket launch.

I talked with Ken Davidian of NASA’s Centennial Challenges program this morning and because of some logistical issues they won’t be able to have any of the microwave-powered climbers operate at the airport. Instead, they’ll head later in the day back to the county fairgrounds, several miles to the west where the qualifying runs took place, to run those climbers. They are going to try and get as many of the solar-powered climbers to run at the Cup this morning, before winds are forecast to pick up this afternoon. This means they may not be able to declare a winner in the beamed power competition before the Cup ends late this afternoon.

At about 7:15 am MDT Armadillo Aerospace showed up with a repaired Pixel vehicle, ready to make another attempt later this morning for the Lunar Lander Challenge Level 1. John Carmack said that they made a number of fixes to Pixel overnight, including replacing the landing legs with the ones from Texel, replacing some burned wiring and adding additional insulation to wiring, and making a change to the flight software to lower the descent rate to 1 m/s, all to avoid the hard landing they experienced yesterday. Carmack said they noticed some cracking in the combustion chamber of the engine, so they replaced the chamber with an older one.

Should they be successful this morning with Level One, they are not ruling out flying Texel for Level Two this afternoon, or else making a demonstration flight of about 150 seconds to break the DC-X flight duration record.

A quasi-random collection of links to other coverage from Friday’s events:

• MSNBC’s Alan Boyle has a good recap of yesterday’s events, including Armadillo’s flight as well as other events;
• SPACE.com’s X Prize special section has several reports on the day’s events.
• CNET News.com has an article and some photo galleries of the event;
• Clark Lindsay of RLV and Space Transport News posted several updates during the day, along with a number of photos;
• Rand Simberg posted numerous updates at Transterrestial Musings;
• Rob Coppinger of Flight International filed articles about Armadillo’s flight and the space elevator competition as well as a blog post with some interesting observations of the day’s events;
• Understatement of the day, from an El Paso TV station: “X-Prize Draws Hundreds To Las Cruces”. While I haven’t seen any official attendance figures so far, 10,000 or more would be a much better estimate than “hundreds”.

One of the other events that took place during the day Friday was a press conference where the Rocket Racing League (RRL) unveiled its first X-Racer rocketplane and its name, Thunderhawk. The event got some star power with guest appearances by Buzz Aldrin and Bill Richardson, the governor of New Mexico:

(Richardson is the second from the left, between Peter Diamandis and RRL’s Granger Whitelaw.) After the announcement, Richardson was asked about how he felt about the RRL, which is setting up shop in New Mexico . To say he was effusive with praise is a minor understatement. “What’s most exciting is the Rocket Racing League,” he said. “You’re going to see, come next year, that Rocket Racing League is going to be as popular as NASCAR.” That’s a little difficult to believe, given both the breadth and depth of interest in NASCAR in the US, but hyperbole comes part and parcel with such events.

Asked if he’d like to take a flight on any rocketplane or suborbital vehicle, he responded, “Yeah, eventually, sure I will. I gotta lose a little weight first.”

Just arrived at the media center for day two of the Wirefly X Prize Cup. It’s still quiet here this morning, with only the faintest hints of light off to the east–sunrise is still about an hour away (fortunately, there’s now a light in the media tent so I can see what I’m doing.) No word yet on Armadillo’s status for the Lunar Lander Challenge; they hoped to fly as early as possible this morning, perhaps as soon as 8:15 am MDT or so. I talked to someone from Masten Space Systems as soon as I got here and they’re planning to do another engine firing early this morning, as one of the first events of the day.

Here’s a brief video from the second flight of Dan Schlund, the “Rocketman”, during the X Prize Cup Friday afternoon. Unfortunately from the standpoint of those in the media gathered on a riser to the left of the media tent, Schlund moved to the right, and kept to a low altitude, which meant he disappeared quickly behind the tent. (Also, because of a technical glitch, there’s no audio.) Nonetheless, there’s still something about seeing someone wearing a jetpack take off…

I’ve put together on Flickr a collection of photos I took during the X Prize Cup on Friday. Some of these are similar to or the same as what I posted throughout the day, while others offer other glimpses of activities throughout the day.