NG LLC News Day Two

It seems that Armadillo took the Level One competition first place purse. Congratulations to them. They have been working on rockets for nearly a decade and it is great news that they are getting this recognition.

That said, they were unable to complete the Level Two flight. They have been having valve issues and the uber complication that has arisen due to the tethered flight rules change by the FAA were unable to trace down the problem. Their rocket took damage and you can see an image of the damage to the nozzle here. Better luck next time.

Since Level Two was what we were planning on participating in, they better expect some competition next time.

We'll get posts up with more information as we are ready. We should be starting the ground fires shortly.

Good luck to the next year's teams and commiseration to TruZer0: you guys were a lot of fun to talk to at Holloman. We'll get caught up soon. At least you have FAA clearance to do free flights. NOW you can do what you need to debug the flying.

NG LLC News

If you are not watching the webcast of the Lunar Lander Challenge, you should be!

It's an exciting, if disappointing morning for the teams. We came in late because of unrelated issues, but made it just in time for TrueZer0's flight....which didn't end well, unfortunately. The vehicle had a stability problem - it seems - and crashed. There was a small peroxide fire. I am curious as to the status of the vehicle: was it totalled? I'd guess yes, but...

Apparently Armadillo made one leg of the flight this morning, but not the second. They are set to try again this afternoon at 3 pm mountain, if we understood correctly.

Best of Luck!

We at Team Phoenicia have been a little silent. We have had some serious manufacturing issues with our parts and as a consequence a funding issue as well. However, we're highly likely, almost guaranteed actually, to be out there flying next year. We will be continuing the team's quest for the X Prizes without pause, at least until someone takes the purses.

That said, we do wish Armadillo and TrueZer0 the best of luck tomorrow and on Saturday. We're not in LC do to other scheduling issues. Even our LC based folks are unable to make it, which is just a shame. Good luck, guys.

DON'T break a lander leg.

We'll be posting more soon. Promise. We have some exciting videos to share shortly.

PS: Guys, hit up La Posta while you're there.

Delay...Delay...Delay...

Holloman AFB has some testing that has trumped the LLC this year. That means either a delay at the site or a change of venue (and probably another, longer delay).

There is a lot in play at the moment and we await seeing what happens. For our team, due to some manufacturing oopses, this actually plays well. A month will help. If its longer, as seems likely to us based on the info as we know it now, it will help us even more.

We had our suspicions something was up based on the interactions we had with Holloman (or at times, lack there-of). Something seemed off after the interested reception we received at the LLC Team Summit. This definitely explains it.

We'll wait and see. The X Prize Foundation has been pretty forth coming as to the status of this. We'll know more as they know more. The official XPF release is over on their blog, The Launch Pad.

A Very Belated Update

We apologize for being so out of touch with those following our progress. There have been developments in our personal lives, especially for the team leader, that have taken us away from being everywhere all the time. The blogging for the team fell behind. We apologize. We're back!

Team Phoenicia has been taking deliveries of the parts for our rocket, The Wind at Dawn. One of the ones that came in that is more photogenic is the thrust chamber for our rocket. The thrust chamber that is pictured is a prototype. Therefore, don't assume that its the final product that will be flying, hopefully, in the October competition.

Without further goofiness, let us introduce our protypical thrust chamber from the days of its clean state:

More Thank Yous

As you might guess from our on going "Thank You" posts that we have been accepting donations to help pay with the team effort. It's a nontrivial amount of money to do testing. As you may have noted, we have a donation button - hint, hint - but we also have a Cafe Press Store. If you have a desire for some team paraphernalia and want to help the team with our enormous testing bill, by all means, check it out!

That said, we wish to thank Theodore Baird and Karen Davis for their contributions towards helping us reach our goals. Thank you both of you.

A Spin off Idea, son of the LLC Team Summit

We are back from the LLC Team Summit. Our blogging has been a little behind schedule. We're going to try to get caught up. Life's been a little complicated. That said, we have to agree with the X Prize Foundation that the event was definitely a success, even if we would have worded it a bit different. There were some brilliant people there and we found their designs absolutely fascinating. There were things we never thought of. One team, a new one under wraps still, really impressed us. We hope that the team makes it to the launch pad this year.

We, ourselves, are rushing as fast as we can to get our ducks in a row. It's going to be a harrowing journey, no matter what, but we came away with something from the summit that really needs to be brought to a larger audience. Perhaps our blog might be a vehicle (ha! we kill ourselves...errrmmm...bad choice of words) to see if that idea might gain soem traction. We have already bounced this off our FAA contact and we'll see if it gets anywhere.

That idea is what we light heartedly calling the "So You Want to Build a Rocket" conference. The suggestion that we made was that the the FAA would present the requirements for their paperwork and the reasoning behind that paperwork. We think that this should be the the opening conference for the next Lunar Lander Challenge, a required conference, that would preceed registration as to give teams an idea of what they are getting into and why.

This would greatly improve what the teams for the LLC - or any other group that wants to build rockets without much prior experience - generate and reduce the time that the FAA would need to hand hold each and every group that comes to them. It would also help the X Prize Foundation as well.

Just a thought.