At a couple of recent conferences, including the ISDC just over a week ago in Dallas, John Carmack said it would take “very bad luck” for Armadillo Aerospace to not win prize money in this year’s Lunar Lander Challenge. This weekend, Armadillo demonstrated why Carmack has been so confident. On Saturday Armadillo flew a “complete LLC 1 [Lunar Lander Challenge level 1] operational profile” at the Oklahoma Spaceport using its Pixel vehicle, doing two 90-second flights between two pads, both times landing within a meter of the center of the pad. All the parameters of the flight fell within the requirements for the prize, making Armadillo the first time to clearly demonstrate that it can win at least the level 1 purse at this October’s competition. “If it weren’t for the X-Prize Cup doing the management of the NASA prize, we would have won it last weekend,” Carmack wrote. “I understand the reasoning behind tying it to an event to help promote the industry as a whole and provide more opportunities for other teams to catch up with the front runner, but as the front runner, I would rather have the check…”