FLIGHT #1 (more angles) of Armadillo Aerospace's Level 2 attempt at NGLLC 2009

Watch Flight 1 (with more shots) of Armadillo Aerospace's successful attempt to qualify to win Level 2 of the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge. The competition is still open as there are other teams attempting to win the $1M first place prize purse later in October 2009. You can find out more about NGLLC 2009 at: http://space.xprize.org/lunar-lander-challenge

You can also see photos at: www.lauchpad.xprize.org

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Armadillo
• Aerospace
• xprize
• northrop
• grumman
• lunar
• lander
• challenge
• moon
• rocket
• john
• carmack
• nasa
• mod
• scorpius
• peter
• diamandis

[jdesbonnet]

What is causing the fire after engine cutoff?

[Datan0de]

Outstanding achievement, guys! Your hard work is clearly paying off in spades! Beautiful flight, and 10 cm is amazing accuracy!

[toastedhippo]

Reminds me of my ex-wife's hairdryer.

[xLightningShotx]

how do they get it to be so stable on such a narrow engine?

[notthemusewere]

Errr..I do not like the phrase "balancing on the thrust." The thrust vector is along the exhaust/chamber line, and if it doesn't pass through the CoG of the rocket, you get torque. But you don't "fall off." The thrust vector looks exactly the same whether the rocket is pointed straight up or lying on its side.

As a mental exercise to help with this, consider a thrust chamber on top (like Goddard's original) is exactly as stable as a thrust chamber on the bottom. it makes no difference.

[quesmind]

But there must be some other way for control landing other than rockets. I would take it that the rocket to be used in the moon is 1/10 of the one use on earth?

[MONDARIZDK]

Part 1) Dont get me wrong, Im VERY impressed by the vehicle and I could NOT do it better. I was simply surprised that it appeared so fragile balancing on the thrust column. I seem to remember VTOL aircraft (research and production) having always had problems regarding this.

[MONDARIZDK]

Part 2) Regarding the rockets, I simply meant, that they dont descend on their gimbaled thrust. Also my comments were really regarding a lunar vehicle developed from this research vehicle, not the vehicle itself. Clearly you have the control system down to a T.

[MONDARIZDK]

Part 3) Once the vehicle descends on the actual moon, it would appear to me, that I would like something that appeared less fragile. Again these comments are observations from someone far outside the development circuit and what appears fragile to me might actually be quite dependable.

[bbrockert]

LM Descent was gimbaled.

The entire vehicle relies on almost every system flawlessly working. Every big rocket balances on thrust, large rockets are not aerodynamically stable.

How would you do it better?

[MONDARIZDK]

AFAIK LM D/A modules did not have thrust vectoring. Im aware that most modern rockets use TVC, but they are not balancing on the thrust like this craft. It might very well be possible to use this technology (the video shows it is), it just seem like a weak spot to me. The whole project would depend on this systems flawless working, thats a lot of responsibility for a little gimball.

[bbrockert]

The LM descent and ascent were both single engines. TVC is extremely well established, every big rocket that flies uses it. Even the solids on the Shuttle are vectored.