Reader Garrett Smith passed along a note about the call for papers for the IAA Symposium on Private Manned Access to Space, to be held May 28-30, 2008 in Arcachon, France. The conference will focus on the technical, legal and regulatory, financial, and other issues associated with human suborbital and orbital spaceflight. The deadline for submissions is December 5. And, as the call for papers notes, “Arcachon in May should be terrific!”

The X Prize Foundation, as anticipated, issued a press release Sunday evening reviewing the past two days of the X Prize Cup. The release plays up the fact that Armadillo nearly won the level 1 prize Saturday afternoon despite a busted engine; the release cites fuel line contamination for the igniter problems experienced by Armadillo on Saturday. There’s not much new information about Sunday afternoon’s hard start and fire, which still eludes an explanation. “This weekend, we’ve had more problems that [sic] we’ve had in the last six months,” Armadillo’s Neil Milburn says in the release. “We know what went wrong, but not why.” The release also revises the attendance upwards to “more than” 85,000.

Here’s a video I shot of Armadillo Aerospace’s first leg of their attempt Sunday morning to win the Lunar Lander Challenge. Due to poor camerawork on my part the lander goes out of frame for a few seconds during its descent. You can see the lander hover for the final seconds of its flight to reach the 90-second mark; it appears it’s on the ground because of intervening terrain, but it’s still in the air.

Brett Alexander, the executive director for space and X Prize Cup for the X Prize Foundation, brief the media a little while ago about the status of Armadillo’s final, failed flight. Some key points:

• There’s still little in the way of technical information about the engine failure this afternoon. There was not a catastrophic explosion but instead a fire that burned for about a minute or so. “Pieces” came off the vehicle, such as cables, but the overall structure appears to be intact. The vehicle will be moved to a hangar shortly.
• There don’t appear to be any plans for any further official briefings about the accident or event in general, although there will be a closed technical debrief with the judges, Armadillo team, and others this afternoon. The X Prize Foundation plans to publish a statement later today/tonight with more details.
• There were no injuries caused by the fire. The closest people to it were an Armadillo team in a van an unspecified distance away; at the time of the fire they walked away from the site. Fire engines were called in, but the fire put itself out before the trucks arrived.
• Alexander said that despite Armadillo’s failed bids to win a prize purse, the event in general was a success. Armadillo showed considerable flexibility in trying to win the prize, and the static displays by the other LLC teams and other exhibitors got a strong message about the industry out to the public.
• Holloman AFB officials estimate the combined attendance over the two days of the show at 80,000, twice the size of the last air show two years ago, and higher than the 60,000 X Prize estimated would attend. In addition, the education day on Friday attracted 6,000 people.
• Northrop Grumman, who has a two-year deal (2006 and 2007) to sponsor the competition, was “very pleased” with the event even though no one won; they have yet to decide whether to renew their sponsorship. Wirefly, who sponsored the overall Cup last year, pulled out rather late because of financial problems with the company, Alexander said, citing publicly-announced developments regarding that company.
• The combination of the LLC with a conventional airshow worked well, he said. The airshow events helped fill in what would otherwise be dead time between prize events during the day (although there were still quiet periods with little going on, particularly during the times Armadillo was preparing its vehicle for flight.) X Prize is looking at options for next year’s event, which include returning to Holloman; a decision will be made in the next few months; they are obligated under their agreement with NASA to hold an LLC competition once a year through 2010, in one manner or another.
• Two or three other teams came close to participating this year, although none got to the point of doing untethered flights, like Armadillo has been doing for a year. Alexander believes that more than one team will be ready to participate next year.

Armadillo Aerospace has apparently suffered another, and this time catastrophic, hard start upon engine ignition, dashing their chances of winning any part of this year’s Lunar Lander Challenge. This time the hard start took place at the beginning of the first leg of the flight (not the return leg, as was the case this morning and yesterday afternoon), and created a spectacular fireball that appeared to significantly damage the vehicle. What caused the hard start this time around isn’t clear–Armadillo thought it has solved the problem that plagued the earlier events–but according to X Prize officials, Carmack has ruled out trying to fly Pixel in a third window this evening. That brings this year’s Lunar Lander Challenge to a close, with no teams winning any money; the full $2 million will be available for Armadillo and other teams next year.

The latest as of about 12 noon MDT:

According to both X Prize and Armadillo personnel, the Mod did not suffer a hard start at the beginning of the first leg of its morning flight (as well as the beginning of its afternoon flight yesterday); only the return legs have suffered these hard starts. According to Armadillo’s Phil Eaton, their current working theory is that a slight change in the injector design, involving a different kind of O-ring, may be keeping alcohol vapors from dissipating as rapidly as they did in the past; the vapor build-up may still be present when the engines are ignited for the return flight, causing the hard start.

Still undecided is whether there will be a third flight opportunity late this afternoon. There are coordination issues with both the FAA and the Air Force that have to be worked out to see if they can fly after the air show ends, no earlier than 6 pm MDT. Since sunset is at 6:30 pm and civil twilight at 7 pm, that means the flights would take place either in twilight or darkness. Eaton said that won’t be an issue for them.

Eaton also said that regardless of whether Mod wins the Level 1 challenge this afternoon, they plan to use Pixel for a Level 2 attempt in the third window. One obstacles: competition judges have to rule whether a swap of Pixel’s engine from Mod back to Pixel would be allowed under the rules.

The latest from the media center: Armadillo will try again this afternoon (start time: 12:45 pm MDT) for level 1 of the Lunar Lander Challenge. They have replaced the engine on Mod with one cannibalized from Pixel. There is also the possibility of a third window late this afternoon, around when the air show ends at 5 pm MDT. No definite word yet from challenge managers about whether that will happen and, if so, how (for example, will the public and media be allowed to stay and watch?)

Armadillo Aerospace’s third bid to win the Level 1 Lunar Lander Challenge failed this morning, again apparently because of continued engine problems. The vehicle appeared to fly well on the first leg of the flight, although the engine may have suffered a hard start on liftoff. On the return flight, the vehicle apparently lifted off briefly (although that was hard to tell from observers on the flightline) and suffered another hard start; Armadillo did a powered abort and landed back on the pad seconds after liftoff. Shortly thereafter they scrubbed for the morning.

It appears that Armadillo will try again to win the Level 1 this afternoon, as they try to diagnose the problems with the engine that have plagued them this weekend. Pixel is available for Level 2, presumably, but right now it appears Armadillo will focus on winning Level 1.

I’ve uploaded to Flickr a photoset of images from Saturday’s X Prize Cup events. It’s a mix of airshow photos, Lunar Lander Challenge images, and the unveiling of Orbital Outfitters’ commercial spacesuit (more on that in the near future.)

Here’s a video I shot of the final Mod flight of the day Saturday, which suffered the engine problem that prevented it from landing successfully. The lander is out of view for the second half of the video, hidden by the terrain (including an unfortunately-placed bush), but you can hear the audio of the play-by-play of the flight and the audience reaction when it was announced the vehicle had not landed safely.