Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Armadillo Aerospace Wins Prize In Lunar Lander Challenge

Mesquite, Texas-based Armadillo Aerospace, one of the firm's competing in the X Prize Foundation's Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge, has scored $350,000 in prize money for its performance at the Lunar Lander Challenge in Las Cruces, New Mexico. According to the X Prize Foundation, Armadillo Aerospace, which is led by id software co-founder John Carmack, won the "Level One" part of the challenge, which required the team to design a rocket-powered, lunar lander which could rise to 50 meters and land on a pad 100 meters away, and to repeat the flight. The firm did not complete Level Two, which required greater flight time and landing on a "replica lunar surface." The team scored over nine other teams in the competition--only two of which managed to get their vehicles airborne. Carmack is the founder of id Software, and created the very popular first-person-shooter games Doom and quake.