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Lunar Lander Challenge Ends in Fire, Disappoinment
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."
Shows just how tough it really is. Should get bonus money just for launching.
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.
I'm waiting for a "-1 somepeoplejustshouldn'tgetmodprivileges" meta-moderation.
I think these guys deserve all the credit they get. John and company spend a lot of time refining their approach and are kind enough to share that data with the rest of the rocketry community. They're helping push commercial rocketry into the mainstream and I wish them all the best. Can't wait to see how they do next year!
XenoPhage
Technological Musings
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!"
A goal is a dream with a deadline
A fire on the launch pad is still a hell of a lot further than most of us have gone.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Again?? Damn.
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
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
That writeup is a bit misleading. It's not like they just showed up and their vehicle burst into flames. In a previous attempt this weekend they completed a 90+ second flight, then about 88 seconds of the second, potentially prizewinning flight before engine trouble brought them down.
It wasn't enough to win the prize, but they still had some impressive flights.
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
"O delicate walker, babbler, dialectician Fire,
O enemy and image of ourselves,"
- Louis MacNeice
Obviously these guys aren't engineers, either!
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!
Afterward, Brett Alexander was heard to lament "Perhaps using those parts from my mom's old Pinto wasn't the best idea..."
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 :-)
Please help metamoderate.
Frankenstein, on hand to witness the event, was heard to comment "Fire...burn!"
Joke------> * !
/ !
/ !
/ !
/ !
!
!
You------>X # <---- Team Armadillo
Please help metamoderate.
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.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
There is an excellent article on how the LLC rules were designed:
http://www.xprize.org/blogs/wpomerantz/ng-llc-rules-explained
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:
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
I've been following their news flashes also, and indeed they are very open about what they're doing (and how). The amount of testing they've done is staggering, but the landing has always been the weakest link of the vehicle IMHO. I think landing is at least as difficult as building the rest of the rocket, but most testing went toward engine testing.
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).
It's really too bad, I thought they had a fair chance. I just hope John will take some time to really focus on the landing, the engine troubles will have to be examined but I don't think it will turn out to be a major issue (again, they've been flying for a while now, the engine is quite stable).
The good thing is that, as a sofware engineer, he surely knows how to handle crashes emotionally.
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
They did. Else it'd have taken a long time for the firefighters to respond. And you don't want your firefighters standing anywhere near an active rocket. It makes sense how it was done. The Armadillo Aerospace crew safes the rocket (shuts down as much as possible), then the fire fighters put out the fire or even let it burn for a while if the rocket can't be controlled for a bit.
It's harder than NASA makes it look.
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 impressive. The fact that they succeed briefly is even more impressive. The design is getting past just being an extremely expensive pogo stick.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
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.. It's really too bad, I thought they had a fair chance. I just hope John will take some time to really focus on the landing, the engine troubles will have to be examined but I don't think it will turn out to be a major issue (again, they've been flying for a while now, the engine is quite stable). He sounded pretty disappointed... Went as far as saying that they felt worse than last year.. I think it was just a bad day.. Sure, improvement will definitely help, but there are always those days that nothing goes right.. That said, they did have some decent flights earlier.. And, the AST qualification flight went off without a hitch.. There's video here : http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/2007_10_21/modFreeFlight.mpg The good thing is that, as a software engineer, he surely knows how to handle crashes emotionally. Heh... There was a lot of discussion about how being a software engineer has impacted how he builds rockets.. Incremental improvements.. Build fast, fly often.. And it's worked.
XenoPhage
Technological Musings
"Once again, it proves that rocket science is hard."
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.
I mean, now that we know it's difficult to work with high-energy equipment, can we stop thinking NASA is a bunch of dunderheads for having the three very bad days (Apollo 1, Challenger, Columbia) across half a century of otherwise amazing success?
Here's a link to footage of launch. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogYrvEEM0Ts
... he still have bugs in the missile code!
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
do you think that his first work was successful? I am thankful that John is doing this. I would guess that if he runs out of money, then many other investors will come along. The truth is that he is in a GREAT place.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
is that last year, everybody was commenting that there would be multiple players and that SOMEBODY WOULD win this year. It is possible that next year, there will be less than 4 entries on this and again nobody will win. I am guessing that it will be 2. And next year, Armadillo will be the team to beat. Do note that I am not saying Carmack. It is possible that he is no longer willing to keep plugging the money, but will bring onboard another investor (somebody like allen who is a visionary).
BTW, one thing that surprises me, is that he keeps his engines close together. It strikes me that any rocket for the moon will be doing mostly orbit to surface tugs, with lightweight launches As such, it seems that this will be used to place cargo on the surface and then leave. To do this, it will need to wrap itself around the cargo, or blast at the side and then lower it without landing (i.e. mars phoenix style). I was also thinking that by doing this, it might stabilize the rocket. But then again, I am not an Rocket Engineer.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
No Fire!
http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
as the vehicle touches the ground, you get a pivotal point and the rocket just tends to top over.
Yeah, I see the problem. The video you linked to shows that the engine is still firing when the first landing leg touches the ground, and the thing just bounces a bit before settling.
They could steal a trick from the Apollo Lunar Module, and attach contact probes to the landing legs. In the LM these extended a few feet down from each footpad, and as soon as any of them made contact with the lunar surface, that would kill the descent engine. The vehicle then just drops the remaining distance. Just make the probes a few inches for Earth gravity, and the thing would be less prone to jittery bouncing when it nears the ground. (I can also see where it might have guidance problems at that point -- one leg touches the ground, bounces a bit, and the guidance system sees that as an attitude change it needs to compensate for with the engine. It really needs an "okay, I'm close enough to the ground to just stop" sensor.)
-- Alastair
...they had installed the Pentagram of Protection.
ALTITUDE 0
SPEED OF DESCENT 100
FUEL REMAINING 0
NEW RATE: 0
YOU LEFT A 2 MILE CRATER. PLAY AGAIN?
In other news, astrophysicists have announced that they now know what all that dark matter is: it's stupidity.
Seriously. They run carbureted V8 engines (no fuel injection, no electronic control). They have tubular steel frames. They have mechanical-linkage sequential shifting. They have your most basic independent suspension. They run stock-profile, sheet metal bodies, and it's big news when they're finally allowed to add an actual aerofoil to the back of the car instead of just a spoiler.
It's reflected in the costs...$125,000 is incredibly cheap for a race car. Good thing too since they can expect to wreck several each season. Compare to IndyCar or Formual 1 where just a chassis can cost over $500,000. If you want to see cutting edge car technology, the type of thing that trickles down to your car, that's where to look. Not NASCAR, where guys still shape cylinder heads with Dremel tools.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
I'm not a millionaire and I don't play one in the virtual worlds. I do have an M.E. degree. It's a lot more challenging than a CS degree which I studied as well. Both are very rewarding for their complementary aspects. You just can't learn it out of a book. He could however fund research for some of the top members in the field and just put his name on it.
To traditional engineering--it's just not nearly as SEXY.
No one is dumping billions to buy an idea for the next Engine with > 25% efficiency which could benefit the world. We did that in the late 80s and had ceramic polymer blocks to bump up to 75% efficiency. The patents were bought and shelved. Fear of people actually giving a rat's ass about engine efficiency was unnecessary. People get bored with stability. They want something new, all the time.
To the Internet's credit, we get instant billionaires for Social Networks. People now are fighting over who gets to control the markets on interaction.
Best of luck to him. I hope he succeeds. Perhaps the headlines will include, ``Nothing can't be achieved if you put enough cash into it.'' Look at Howard Hughes! He achieved much, alienated himself to all and became a recluse.
Shame on Northrup. They should have solved this themselves. Their contracts are in the billions. Perhaps they figure they'll get some free ideas. Who knows. I'd rather expect them to work on more electric field systems to solve this, but then again we still have to create a way station on the Moon.
...this isn't that dificult, this isn't like rocket science! ...Oh!
Wait!
It is!
Damn you von Braun!
My signature is in the cloud.
I take it that you follow Armadillo Aerospace closely. Enough to criticize the credentials of those involved.
Or more to the point, you don't think a company whose product requires skilled M.E.s for their primary product, like lets say General Motors or Ford, could be operated by somebody other than a mechanical engineer?
Now I'm not suggesting here that if Carmack went and did as you said, and went "back to school" to get some additional insight in the fields you are talking about, that it wouldn't be helpful. However, you perhaps don't know what Carmack's contribution to the company has really been.
His primary contributions have been in developing the guidance systems and the control software. And that is something where his considerable experience trying to tweak computer hardware for video games has been a tremendous advantage. It also shows in terms of the performance of the spacecraft, as the flight software certainly was not the fault of any of the problems at the X-Prize Cup.
I'm not saying that any of this is easy to accomplish either, but it is also not a one-man effort put together either. Also, there have been some "rookie" mistakes made by the Armadillo team over the years, but in this sense Carmack has been gaining the knowledge "on the job" by actually building the equipment. And if you read his blogs, it shows just how much of that knowledge that he has learned from others working with him, and how the designs have gradually changed over the years. He didn't just create Armadillo Aerospace last year.
Here is the link to the preliminary video report.
Seastead this.