Good morning! It's 6am on the final day of the 2007 X PRIZE Cup, and I'm about to head into a safety breifing for all personnel. Before I do, I wanted to provide a quick recap of the week's events, with a focus on Armadillo Aerospace's attempts yesterday to win the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge--with some videos.

X PRIZE staff have been at Holloman Air Force Base full time all week. All year, we've been generously supported by the airmen here on the base, all of whom (like most of our competing teams) have full time day jobs, and are only helping us out on their spare time. That changed this week, as the Holloman Air & Space Expo, including the X PRIZE Cup, started to be the full assignment of some of the key personnel helping us out.

Sunday through Thursday were consumed with logistical things: safety meetings, setting up exhibits, coordinating displays, receiving training for operations on the airfield, et cetera.

Friday, the real action started, as we welcomed thousands of children to the base as part of our educational day. It was also the day for the airplanes that take part of the show to practice their routines (fun for the kids), and for the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge Judges to inspect the vehicles and reacquint themselves with the team and the vehicles (fun for the rocket geeks). Like last, most of us staff found ourselves jealous of the audience, who actually got to watch the show and read the displays, instead of scurrying back and forth takning care of business one way or another.

As anyone from XPF or HAFB will tell you, Education Day is a huge part of what the X PRIZE Cup is all about; it's meant to be an inspirational event, and every instant of inspiration is an extremely gratifying moment. But, for many of us, the real excitement started Saturday morning.

Saturday was a perfect day for rocket-flying. The weather was beautiful: sunny, cool, and with just the slightest breeze. I spoke with Neil Milburn of Team Armadillo at the 6am safety brieing yesterday, then with the full team outside the Staging Area at around 7:30, and was shocked by how calm and relaxed they were. It was clear that they felt (and rightly so!) that this was just another operation for them. In the past year, they have practiced and practiced and practiced for this event, and it clearly shows. They are about as well prepared as they could reasonably be. But, as the day would show, there are no sure things in rocketry.

After we dealt with some communications problems (some inoperative radios in the field that needed to be replaced), the first Time Period began at about 8:05. The crowd was just beginning to filter in, so the atmosphere was calm, as Armadillo was sent off with warm wishes by a small crowd of friends, family, and supporters--including some of the other Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge Teams. We arrived out at the pad zone, and Armadillo removed the Modular vehicle from their crane truck. Armadillo went through their pre-flight checklist, their ethanol load, their LOX (Liquid Oxygen) load, and their pressurization all on or ahead of schedule. Just few minutes shy of 09:00, Armadillo was ready for their first flight.

Unforunately, that first flight didn't happen. We heard a countdown, but then the Mod sat on the pad, rather than shooting upwards. Listening eagerly over the radios, we quickly heard that Armadillo was having problems with their igniters. After spending a few minutes on the pad trying to fixed it, Armadillo declared a scrub: they were not going to be able to fix the problem on the pad.

Back in the XPF office a while later, we got the full debrief. Evidently, Armadillo was experience some problem with their igniter related to contamination in the feed lines. Such contamination lead to some something called a hard start. A 'hard start' is when a problem leads to excess fuel buildup in the engine champer. When a 'spark' finally comes (for reference, Team Armadillo literally uses a spark plug), this fuel can explode, destroying the engine or even the vehicle. To prevent this, Armadillo had built in several safety systems that meant to prevent hard starts, and these prevented flight in the morning window.

By the start of the afternoon window, Armadillo had fixed the problem. They had cleaned out the contamination manually, and had reversed the flow through the system to further ensure good flow. We got a start promptly after Brig. Gen. Golfein addressed the audience, and rolled out for the next attempt.

I'll post more detail later, as I'm running out of time, but Armadillo's first flight was BEAUTIFUL! It was once again my privelege and honor to up very close to the pad, and I can tell you that Armadillo's flights are awesome in the literal sense of the word. They vehicle is slow loud, and flies so steadily. Truly incredible. A great insipriation to everyone in the audience--and to those of us on staff! A beatiful 93 second flight, above 50 meters the whole way, and with a landing less than a meter off the (2.7 feet, to be precise) the center of the pad.

Unfortunately, the second flight did not go as well. The igniter problem reappeared, and this time, the team actually had a very small hard start (a 'firm start'?), which actually below a hole in the side of the chamber. Amazingly enough, despite a hole in the engine, the vehicle took off anyway. We would instantly notice a different sound, and a much different colored flame. But the sturdy vehicle took off anyway, and managed to control the asymmetric thrust from the hole and keep the vehilce straight.

Unfortunately, about 80 seconds into the flight, the vehicle was nearing fuel depletion, and ran out of ability to correct for the vectored thrust. The vehicle started swinging from side to side like a pendulum, and eventually ran into several aborts--an automatic tilt level abort as well as manual aborts from two Armadillo team members. The vehilce came down with some horizontal veolcity, hi the ground with two wheels first, and tipped over.

As of this morning, the Mod is fixed up, with a brand new engine. A brand new chamber that just came
in this week. They flushed out the system again. Armadillo is convinced that yesterday's problems were caused by contamination, possibly from the ethanol itself (Some wild
conjecture here: this may be a consequence of the growing popularity of
E85 is that there are a lot of new ethanol plants, and many people here
have heard anecdotal complaints of ethanol with small contaminants). The team put
a metallic filter in line just before the small orifice that was
clogging up yesterday. Did a static test, and things are looking the
way they should look--whereas it was sputtering yesterday. Then put
some pressure in the tank, and it was like a showerhead.

Planning
to fly the Mod in Level One this morning; the nominal plan would be to
win that in the morning, and try Level Two in the afternoon.

Wish the team luck!