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Lunar Lander Challenge Ends in Fire, Disappoinment
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Mon Oct 29, 2007 10:30 AM
from the fire-go-boom-boom dept.
from the fire-go-boom-boom dept.
mikesd81 writes "The rocketeers at Armadillo Aerospace, thwarted by engine problems and other mechanical failures, left this year's X Prize Cup empty-handed after their spacecraft burst into flames on liftoff Sunday. An attempt on Sunday to hop from launch and landing pads ended with the MOD craft bursting in flames shortly after engine ignition. This is the team's second attempt at the challenge in New Mexico, they were the only entrant in last year's event, which they also lost. Brett Alexander, Executive Director of Space Prizes and the X Prize Cup relayed a comment from John Carmack, leader of the Armadillo team: "Today is officially a bad day when it comes to our vehicle." The last attempt to win the $350,000 Level 1 prize on Sunday ended when the MOD vehicle had an engine fire, with pieces coming off, including disconnected cabling. Clearly, there was a fire on the pad that burned for a while — but then went out. The Armadillo team called a safety emergency, requesting fire truck assistance, Alexander said."
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It really is rocket science... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Officially a bad day..." (Score:4, Funny)
I've checked with the league and while there are qualifications to rate this as a bad day, the league still has to check on several rulings.
League spokesman, Heilig Gdankazan, has cautioned members to avoid premature declarations of official calls, "We expect to be able to officially rule this as an official bad day in the near future."
Previous bad days that took league intervention were:
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Just caught a show the other day explaining how much harder the Soviets had it then they let on at the time. They had some really ugly launchpad accidents even as they were being characterized (by themselves, and the rest of the world) as being beyond that sort of thing. Other than the accidents - which aren't really surprising, especially with the 40+ engines they were trying to use on the N1! - the thing about their program that was the biggest surprise to me was their
Re:It really is rocket science... (Score:4, Informative)
The Soviet space program is as full of accidents or more so than our own. It really is tough business:
Yuri Gagarin's Vostok 1 capsule remained inadvertantly connected to it's service module during re-entry due to a bundle of wires (I assume a pyro failed to fire). It caused the spacecraft to wobble marginally out-of-control until the wires burned through.
After a series of problems in-flight led to a decision to delay the Soyuz 2 launch (probably fortuitiously, since 2 would've had the same issues), the Soyuz 1 main chute didn't deploy and the backup chute tangled. The cosmonaut died when the capsule hit the ground. Interestingly, it launched under political pressure, and Gagarin had tried to get himself scheduled for the flight, believing the politburo would then listen to the engineer's concerns rather than risk losing a national hero.
All four N-1's (the Soviet's planned moon rocket) exploded during launch (unmanned).
A Cosmos rocket exploded on the pad in 1973, killing 9 engineers.
In 1975, Soyuz 18a went out of control 5 minutes into launch, causing the launch escape system to activate. This saved the crew, but barely. They experienced accellerations up to 21 g's, and the capsule landed in the mountains in NW China. One article claims the capsule would've tumbled off a cliff if the chute hadn't snagged on a tree, but I haven't seen that verified.
Soyuz 23 in 1976 crashed through a frozen lake and sank with the crew inside. Remarkably, the crew was saved after considerable effort when a diver attached a cable that allowed a helicopter to lift the capsule out.
A 1980 explosion of an unmanned Vostok rocket on the pad killed 48 people on the ground.
In 1983, Soyuz T-10 caught fire on the pad. Ground control triggered the launch escape system, pulling the two men and their capsule clear. The rocket exploded two seconds later, but the cosmonauts survived.
There was a fire aboard the Mir in 1997. The same year, a Progress cargo ship collided with the station and punctured one of the modules. The crew had to rush to close the hatch to the module.
In 2002, an unmanned Soyuz rocket exploded, killing a Russian soldier.
One thing few people realize is there have been nearly as many close-calls in the US space program. Everyone knows about Apollo 13, but the first shuttle launch had a near burn-through due to tiles that fell off during launch. Another shuttle flight had an engine shutdown due to a short circuit that left it in a low orbit. Apollo 12 was hit by lightning. One of the Gemini flights went out of control and tumbled violently, nearly killing Neil Armstrong and David Scott. The Mercury 4 capsule had a hatch blow prematurely on splash down and sank as Gus Grissom scrambled to escape.
All of these guys, US, Russian, and Chinese alike have a lot of guts.
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Sad story. (Score:5, Insightful)
I for one welcome our new flaming deathtrap overlords.
But in all seriousness, I'm glad we found this out BEFORE trying it on the moon. I wish them better luck, and better engineering, in the next go-round.
History if full of these stories.... (Score:5, Insightful)
They'll get it eventually, and when they do (given that they are ID), I hope the headline reads "EXCELLENT!....IMPRESSIVE!"
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It's a difficult challenge...initial failures are to be expected. Often times, breaking this kind of ground is more about tenacity than anything else.
They'll get it eventually, and when they do (given that they are ID), I hope the headline reads "EXCELLENT!....IMPRESSIVE!"
So until then they got to hear "HOOOOLY SHIT!"?
(note to you non-CTF-playing weenies - it's the default sound in Quake 3 that plays when a flag carrier eats it within inches of capturing the thing).
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"You Suck"......."Roger that"....
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Damnit, now I'm getting all nostalgic for Q3...
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Congrats anyway. (Score:4, Funny)
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I agree, and give them a good amount of respect and props for getting as far as they did. This is serious science, after all.
But it's a little like NASCAR and ice skating — you're wondering when the crashes will start. And when people will have fun with the YouTube footage. [youtube.com]
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Brandine: "Dang, Cletus! Why'd you have to park so close to my parents?"
Cletus: "Now honey, they's mah parents too!"
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I don't watch NASCAR, but the automobiles are technologically sophisticated. They cost $125,000 to build, and because there's so much money in it, are the result of the most expensive, top-notch engineering you can find in racing.[1] [foxsports.com]
The problem isn't the lack of engineering - nowadays it's the overengineering. NASCAR has issued millions in dollars in fines to teams that have cheated (to different extents) in order to gain performance enhancements on other teams. In some areas of racing, the equivalent of
Re:Congrats anyway. (Score:5, Informative)
While I think that the idea that the GP post was modded "insightful" is downright sad, I have to disagree with the above as well. While the race teams strive to get the cars as fast as possible, NASCAR's engineering (at the circuit level) appears to be dedicated to "making the race more competitive." That means SLOWER cars (see "restrictor plate," "aero package,") and rigid specifications on how the cars can be engineered and set-up.
Contrast this with something like F1 where it really is all about the technology, and it's downright silly to describe NASCAR as the apex of automotive engineering.
Parent
Again? (Score:2, Funny)
OTOH, at least George Broussard isn't on the team, or we'd have "The rocketeers at Armadillo Aerospace 4ever"
It seems Armadillo is DOOMed. OW! OW! STOP HITTING ME!!
-mcgrew
Overly negative (Score:5, Informative)
It wasn't enough to win the prize, but they still had some impressive flights.
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I'm not quite sure of my sources on this, but they seem to have had fuel (oxidizer? igniter?) contamination issues, leading to a flaky igniter, leading on the second flight to a hard start that caused eng
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Oh, man, obviously you've never coded a software renderer on an OS that doesn't have memory protection. *shudder*
-:sigma.SB
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Re:Overly negative (Score:4, Interesting)
then about 88 seconds of the second, potentially prizewinning flight before engine trouble brought them down
I think it was 83 seconds (7 seconds short!), but it's also worth noting that they did the return flight with a fist-sized hole in the graphite engine. John decided to try the return flight by flying it over really fast, then hovering above the ground a few meters so if the engine finally quit, it would only fall a short distance. Flying with that much damage is amazing enough, but I also find it interesting how easily the rocket is programmed to do whatever Carmack wants, with such control.
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Re:Overly negative (Score:4, Informative)
I went to Alamogordo to watch the competition. As a graduate student in Albuquerque, the 3.5 hour drive was worth it. As the previous poster commented, the Saturday flight was ALMOST successful. The first transition from pad to pad did not have any problems at all. The hovering lander was a very interesting sight to see above the desert. Due to safety issues, the viewing area was too far away to get a good look when the lander was close to the ground. However, a large video screen broadcast the images.
When I was standing there, watching, it was unclear what actually caused them to fail to meet the objectives. I thought the lander actually made the time limit on the return trip but did not land successfully. I thought it tipped over, or something broke off when it came down. However, I was unable to clearly see and my experience was based on a what people were saying over a loud speaker and the images of lander in a dusty cloud on a giant screen. It is interesting to read that they actually did not meet the time limit. I wasn't able to see the Sunday launch.
Overall, I will probably continue to support the competitions. Many people in New Mexico are excited about developing a consumer space industry, myself included. The air show had about the same excitement pattern as a baseball game, very exciting for a small portion of the time and a lot of waiting. I hope that the guys at Armadillo Aerospace know that everyone is rooting for them.
When I get ready to graduate, I will bring a STACK of resumes to the XPrize contests, there were a lot of really cool companies with booths set up.
-Brian-
Parent
And yet we learn, from our Brother, Fire... (Score:2)
O enemy and image of ourselves,"
- Louis MacNeice
Hah-Hah! The X-Wing performed better! (Score:2, Interesting)
Said in jest since Slashdot seemed so ready to poo-poo the X-Wing builders, but are soooo sympathetic for these guys.
That said...
Yeah, this stuff is hard to pull off. It's not called rocket science for nothing!
Parts is parts. (Score:3, Funny)
"robust"? (Score:3, Insightful)
Pete Worden, a Lunar Lander Challenge judge - and director of NASA's Ames Research Center, told SPACE.com that the engine blew up, with the rocket's engine chamber tossing out pieces onto the pad. "It's over for them for this X Prize Cup," Worden said. But he added: "I do think they are getting there...it's a robust design.
That's one exciting definition of robust :-)
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diagram to help you (Score:2, Redundant)
/ !
/ !
/ !
/ !
!
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I am not a rocket engineer, but I believe the answer to that is restart capability. Solid boosters go off once. If you're trying to start and stop the craft, it's a problem.
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1. the competition is to launch up, pitch over and translate, and land on another pad. Refuel and repeat. Good luck getting a solid engine to throttle nicely. Yes, the Army does it with pintle engines. But it is a far cry from uncomplicated.
2. Mechanics of a solid: thrust is (for a zeroth order analysis) proportional to the surface area burning. While you can make a flat burning solid (by having a cylinder with a moon or
Frankenstein was heard to comment (Score:4, Funny)
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Points to make (Score:5, Interesting)
Inevitably, some "real" engineers will comment on this story and make snide armchair hindsight comments, with the overall point that it really does take a billion dollars to do rocketry.
Some points:
1) These are R&D vehicles. They are not production vehicles. Don't judge what production reliability will be like based on R&D.
2) They may not have made it over the finish line, but they are the only ones who entered the race among ten or so teams. Many of the teams said they were "close" last year, yet still couldn't make it work a year later.
The real measure of how successful Armadillo is going is the how easy they're making it look in their videos. But it's not easy, and the fact that they're the only one that's flying hoverable rockets on a weekly basis proves it.
One of the things that bugs me the most is when Aerospace engineers tear down what they're doing, implying they could do it better, if they only had Armadillo's money. Lots of people have money, but lots of people are also not making Armadillo's progress -- with volunteers, working two days a week.
Give Carmack the credit for being the genius that he is.
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There's a local (Colorado) team that has a vehicle and they felt it ready to enter, but (per the newspaper report) couldn't get the requisite FAA flight approval. (Sorry, don't recall whether it was Paragon or Micro-Space).
I would have thought that some kind of contest like this would have a
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I've noticed that SpaceX (and Elon Musk) has decided to push toward the vertical integration concepts that you are talking about here, and it seems to have saved them quite a bit in terms of both cost of operations as well as improving their quality assurance. The Falcon I still isn't a resounding success, but at least they have
Explanation of the LLC rules (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.xprize.org/blogs/wpomerantz/ng-llc-rules-explained [xprize.org]
10 years of X-Prizes later (Score:2)
it's not rocket SCIENCE (Score:3, Insightful)
Gaaah! Rocket science is not hard, you can pretty much sum it up with Newton's Laws.
Rocket engineering is hard. But engineers get no respect.
Re:Sorry to hear this (Score:5, Interesting)
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Lately, they have been flying reliably, but then they had to change the graphite chambers suddenly because the company they bought them from had received a big
Re:Sorry to hear this (Score:4, Informative)
Lately, they have been flying reliably, but then they had to change the graphite chambers suddenly because the company they bought them from had received a big order and could not supply them to Armadillo. Is that what caused the problems? In any case, making changes just before the big show is always an omen for troubles (not that they had a choice). That may have been it, though there has been some talk about the fuel mixture as well. I guess there's no "standard" for fuel mixtures, or at least, not the kind they use, and the supplier may have changed the mixture slightly? I'm sure John and the rest of the crew will dissect, diagnose, and post the findings..
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It took over a decade (50's to 60's) before NASA could routinely launch something successfully. Even then it was go up, go ballistic and come down. The fact that Armadillo was attempting to fly the thing in a damaged condition is really impress
Can we stop making fun of NASA now? (Score:5, Insightful)
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