It’s an exciting day at the Space Elevator Games as the University of Saskatchewan Space Design Team (USST) has just posted a 58 second climb meaning that unless someone beats there time and the judges rule that all elements of the team are within the rules then we will have our first NASA Centenial Challenge winner and they will head home with $200k.

On the first half of the LLC Level One the Armadillo Lunar Lander didn’t land on the pad and tipped over to it’s side. It took some time for the Armadillo Team to realize what had happened due to the dust spewed up.

Apparently the spanish team participating in the space elevator games has lost their equipment, from what i read UPS lost the climber mechanism somewhere in Kentucky.
Even if the equipment turns up in time for tomorrow it will be hard for them to participate in the space elevator games.

Watch today’s events at the Wirefly X Prize Cup site.

Corection: the Armadillo LLC did fail the test due to technical problems with it’s landing gear which broke of. The interview with John Carmack following the LLC contest was very intersting since he talked about how long it took from concept to being able to fly the Armadillo. Six months is a very impressive. Also the cost factor compared to the big Aerospace companies is huge. Armadillo spent around $200,000.00. Compared to the hundreds of million or billion spent by the bigger comapnies the results today speak for themselves.

Looks like the first half went pretty smooth, now they have to refuel and do the same thing again. Is there going to be enough time for Armadillo to refuel within the time limit?

A Learjet demoed the Rocket Racer League 3D graphics system. For demonstration it flew a set course around the Airport. Featured were shots from inside the Learjet as well as CGI of the Learjet flying thru the course in real time.

The Armadillo Team took off towards the northwest of the airport. They’re out of sight but there’s TV coverage now and then so please stay tuned for updates.

Level Two means that it has to take-off vertically, climb to at least 50 meters, fly for 90 seconds and land vertically on a target that is approximately 100 meters from the takeoff point. The vehicle must then fly back to the original pad under the same guidelines and land on the original launch pad.

The Tripoli Phoenix-XL launch was flawless. It went into the blue sky with a twisted exhaust column. The parachutes deployed and the rocket came down in 2 seperate pieces about 2-3miles northeast from the runway.

F-117 flyby was gorgeous, it flew parallel from west to east and east to west parallel to the event.

On thursday there were two FAA monitored tests by Armadillo. The first tethered test in the morning was successful. The second untethered test in the afternoon started well, but after about half distance a lot of dust was thrown into the air and the Armadillo team due to lack of visibility had to guess if the rocket made it to the landing pad. After the dust settled it became clear that the untethered test was again successful. Unfortunately there was a minor mishap, the landing pad was missed by a couple of meters and the rocket flipped to the side without causing damage to the rocket itself. FAA officials were satisfied with the performance of the rocket and cleared it for today.

Spectators are starting to come into the X Prize Cup area. Please post questions in the comment section below regarding everything concerning the X Prize event. Those questions will be forwarded to our broadcast team and will hopefully be answered.