Fourth Attempt At Level 1 Challenge Ends With Launch Explosion

It was an ignominious end to what looked to be a very promising outlook for Armadillo Aerospace at this weekend's Wirefly X Prize Cup in Alamogordo, MN. The company's hard-fought quest to snare $350,000 in NASA funds through the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge ended with an attention-grabbing explosion Sunday afternoon.

"Today is officially a bad day," Armadillo Aerospace founder John Carmack told the X Prize Foundation's Brett Alexander, as reported by MSNBC.

The explosion occurred during Armadillo's fourth attempt over the weekend to win the "Level 1" challenge, which calls for a lander to ascend vertically to a height of 50 meters, fly horizontally 100 meters, land and refuel... and then retrace the route, within 150 minutes. Each flight leg also has to last a minimum of 90 seconds.

As ANN reported, the Armadillo team came heartbreakingly close to fulfilling those goals, as an attempt Saturday ended with an engine cutoff just seconds before the lander was to touch down during its return flight. Carmack said that problem was due to an on-the-fly prelaunch repair to a clogged igniter; the filed-down paper clip the team used expanded the igniter, causing the fuel flow rate to increase past original design parameters.

A third attempt Sunday morning ended abruptly when the motor once again failed during the return leg, bringing MOD down to Earth hard and destroying its engine. Carmack's team then cannibalized the rocket motor from its larger Pixel lander (seen below, from 2006) meant to compete in the harder Level 2 contest, so MOD could have another shot at winning the prize.

The fourth attempt ended seconds after the initial countdown. The team declared an emergency as flames engulfed the launch pad; no injuries were reported, and the fire burned itself out before fire crews arrived on scene.

"The engine blew up. We had a hard start. ... It actually tore the engine loose," Armadillo team member Russ Blink told MSNBC. "There's some little gremlin that got us, and we need to get it out."

Amazingly, the lander doesn't appear to be destroyed... though it will require some TLC before Armadillo can hope to try again. Carmack reportedly considered trying for the harder Level 2 challenge -- which substitutes Level 1's smooth landing surfaces for lunar-type terrain -- using a spare motor, but decided he'd had enough for the day.

Meanwhile, the combined $2 million in prizes for the lander challenge will roll over to next year... giving hope to teams whose landers weren't quite ready for the competition this year (nine companies were entered; Armadillo's two landers were the only ones ready for the event.)

Some may think those competing companies would take some measure of joy in Armadillo's failure... but they aren't familiar with the close-knit rocketry community. "It's painful, even for us other competitors, to see that," said Dave Masten, president and CEO Masten Space Systems.

Paul T. Breed -- senior partner in the father-and-son Unreasonable Rocket team -- reportedly choked up when asked for reaction to MOD's failed launch. Son Paul A. Breed said Armadillo "definitely deserved to win.

"Things go wrong," the younger Breed added. "Murphy loves rockets."

FMI: www.armadilloaerospace.com, http://space.xprize.org/x-prize-cup/