Below is a brief video interview I conducted with John Carmack of Armadillo Aerospace at the end of the Space Access ’09 conference. (This was recorded outdoors at the end of the day, hence the low lighting; you should also turn up your audio.) He talks about their current plans for both the Lunar Lander Challenge as well as suborbital vehicles, as well as how the company is now making money and what lessons he’s learned from the early days of the venture.

Look for a couple more video interviews from the conference to appear here in the coming days.

At Space Access ‘09 Armadillo Aerospace’s John Carmack noted that his company’s deal with Rocket Racing for suborbital vehicle development “did not come to fruition”. MSNBC’s Alan Boyle confirms that from the Rocket Racing side: president and CEO Granger Whitelaw said the suborbital vehicle development is “on hold” while the company focuses on its core business, the Rocket Racing League.

Even that, though, appears to have slowed down. Last year the league announced plans for exhibition races at eight sites in 2009 from a list of 20 venues, primarily air shows. However, Whitelaw tells MSNBC that plans call for two rocket racing vehicles to fly at the Reno Air Races in September. Those would be powered by Armadillo’s engines, and Whitelaw said that they are making a number of modifications to the aircraft based on the flight tests performed last fall. Unlike last year, it does not appear that the league will be flying at Oshkosh. The economy, as you might have guess, gets the blame for the slowdown in activity.

At the 2008 Lunar Lander Challenge last October, Rocket Racing and Armadillo Aerospace announced a joint venture to develop vertical takeoff, vertical landing vehicles for suborbital space tourism. However, Armadillo Aerospace founder John Carmark revealed at Space Access ‘09 this morning that this deal—at least, as announced in October—has fallen through. Carmack said that while there are relationships with both Rocket Racing and an unnamed third party, the deal as announced “did not come to fruition”. Carmack added, though, that he anticipates making some announcements in the next month that may be related to any suborbital vehicle work.

Carmack also revealed some details about Armadillo’s plans for Level 2 of the Lunar Lander Challenge. He said they are planning now to be ready to compete for the prize when the “season” opens in early July, the first public reference I’m aware of regarding how the X PRIZE Foundation plans to run the LLC this year in lieu of a once-a-year event in New Mexico. Carmack added that they would be prepared to fly again later in the year if someone else successfully completes Level 2 this year with a higher level of accuracy. Flying early, he said, would allow them to then focus their work on other projects rather than LLC vehicles.

Below is a brief snippet of Will Whitehorn’s speech at the FAA Commercial Space Transportation Conference on Friday. In this segment Whitehorn examines some of the other ventures developing suborbital vehicles, including Rocketplane, EADS Astrium, Blue Origin, XCOR, Armadillo Aerospace, and Copenhagen Suborbitals, a little-known Danish firm developing a very minimalist suborbital system. Whitehorn’s theme in this segment is that while some of these ventures may be technically viable, they’re not capable—in his opinion, at least—of expanding to markets beyond tourism.

[Note: the video was shot with a Flip handheld camera, so the quality isn't great, and you'll probably want to crank the sound up.]

As the 2008 Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge was winding down, I was able to sit down and talk with John Carmack of Armadillo Aerospace for several minutes. Below is the video from that interview, where Carmack discusses what happened with Pixel on Saturday, his plans for the future (which begin with tracking down and solving the engine problem that doomed Pixel’s Level 2 attempt), and his relief at winning Level 1 after two years of coming up short.

The X PRIZE Foundation issued a press release about the 2008 Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge Saturday, highlighing Armadillo’s Level 1 victory, their attempt at Level 2, as well as TrueZer0’s Level 1 attempt.

Also, I’ve uploaded another set of photos to Flickr with the highlights of Saturday’s activities, including a look at launch pads used for the competition.

It appears that Pixel suffered enough damage that they will not be able to repair it in time to fly again today. Still waiting for official word, but all indications over the radio loop indicate that Armadillo will not try to fly again today. John Carmack said in a brief press conference that this problem was similar to what they had been seeing in recent testing, with the LOX valve opening quickly and the fuel valve slowly. This creates a very lean mixture that caused the nozzle to burn through. They have enough parts to fix the vehicle but decided that they want to step back and figure out what is causing the problem rather than rushing another attempt.

Peter Diamandis hinted that they may try to move up next year’s competition so that Armadillo and other teams don’t have to wait until next October to try again. “I feel like a game show host” when say that Armadillo is walking away with $350,000, for first prize in Level One. “And we hope you return next time to go for the million-dollar award.”

Below: an image of the Pixel engine nozzle that was damaged in this morning’s attempted flight.

I’ve created a Flickr set of images from yesterday’s activities at the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge. The picture above, though, probably best represents the mood of people here at the end of the day yesterday when Armadillo Aerospace won the $350,000 first prize for Level 1. They’ll be back at it again today, using Pixel (a veteran of the 2006 LLC) to try and win Level 2. Look for updates throughout the day here and on Twitter.

Armadillo completed a sucecssful return flight this afternoon, remaining in the air about 95 seconds before landing safely. All they need to do at this point is to return the vehicle to the staging area in time to claim the prize, and right now that doesn’t appear to be a problem. There are a lot of very happy people here at Las Cruces right now.

As Armadillo was trying to win Level 1 of the LLC, this press release about a joint venture between Armadillo Aerospace, Rocket Racing Inc., and the state of New Mexico to develop VTVL space tourism vehicles hit the wires:

ROCKET RACING INC., ARMADILLO AEROSPACE AND NEW MEXICO CREATE JOINT VENTURE TO LAUNCH PRIVATE SUBORBITAL SPACE TRANSPORTATION BUSINESS

New York, NY—October 23, 2008—Space took a giant leap closer to earth today, following the launch of a new joint venture between Rocket Racing, Inc. (RRI), Armadillo Aerospace and the government of New Mexico. With a goal of sending adventurers into suborbital space with a target price of $100,000 per ticket or less, the three companies unveiled plans to field a fleet of reusable Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) vehicles (RLV) that will take flight from Spaceport America near Las Cruces, New Mexico. Each ship is slated to provide a cabin where passengers can float weightless with a 360-degree view of space. To date, other companies in the commercial space industry have promised rides to similar altitudes featuring small porthole-sized views for more than $200,000.

“I am honored that Rocket Racing, Inc. and Armadillo Aerospace have chosen New Mexico to set up shop,” said Governor Bill Richardson. “Spaceport America and the State of New Mexico are proud partners and together we are writing the next chapter of space transportation.”

Under the terms of the partnership, Armadillo Aerospace will develop the reusable launch vehicles and provide ground support and equipment. The State of New Mexico will supply launch facility infrastructure and resources. Rocket Racing Technology Development, a wholly owned subsidiary of Rocket Racing Inc., will provide financing for, and business and operational management of, the partnership. Reservations, experience marketing, customer training and the coordination of the passengers’ overall experience will be managed exclusively by a third partner company that will be announced when marketing efforts begin.

“The price of space is coming down to earth,” said Granger Whitelaw, Chief Executive Officer of Rocket Racing, Inc. “And thanks to Armadillo’s ships and New Mexico’s spaceport, human beings will be treated to the most stellar views in the galaxy.”

While the venture owes its wings to technologies that have spent decades in development, its launch is made possible only through their recent combination. Armadillo’s eight years of research and development on a dozen different flying vehicles is contributing engines, software, and operational capabilities. Meanwhile, the company’s ground and flight test programs for the Rocket Racing League over the past year has resulted in flight research data that will be applied to allow for superior vehicle tracking and passenger safety.

Beyond suborbital space tourism, Rocket Racing Inc. also plans to deploy its vehicles to serve in a variety of payload transport initiatives. Target missions include micro-gravity experiments, astrophysics observations, reconnaissance and high-altitude scientific and meteorological measurements.

The companies plan to fly evolutions of existing vehicles to space and fabricate an initial manned vehicle prototype in 2009 and perform initial manned flights to space in 2010.

Whitelaw is here, along with Carmack, and we’re told NM Governor Richarson will be coming this afternoon for a press conference (perhaps about this). I’ll provide more details as they’re available. The images they did release with the announcement indicate that this is pretty much the same type of vehicle that Armadillo has been planning to do for some time, but now with two passengers instead of one.