NASA Announces Lunar Lander Analog Competition Agreement

MOON DAILY

The Lunar Lander Analog Challenge will take place in the vicinity of the Las Cruces (Calif.) International Airport. Competing teams will demonstrate their vehicle's ability to launch vertically, hover in mid-air, land on a target more than 100 yards away and then repeat the feat.

by Staff Writers
Washington DC (SPX) May 08, 2006
NASA announced Friday the agency's Centennial Challenge program has teamed with the X PRIZE Foundation to offer a $2 million Lunar Lander Analog Challenge.

"NASA's Centennial Challenge program is using the tool of prize competitions, so successfully demonstrated by the X-PRIZE, to plant the seeds for future space commercial activities," said Shana Dale, the agency's deputy administrator.

"We're confident the Lunar Lander Analog Competition will stimulate the development of the kinds of rockets and landing systems that NASA needs to return to the moon, while also accelerating the development of the private sub-orbital space flight industry."

Dale made the announcement at the International Space Development conference. The challenge will take place at the X PRIZE Cup Expo in Las Cruces, N.M., Oct. 20-22.

NASA is sponsoring the challenge, offering the competition's largest cash prize yet for developing a space vehicle that could support exploration of the Moon.

The X PRIZE Foundation is administering and executing the competitions at no cost to NASA, providing the venue for the competition and encouraging involvement by a diverse field of competitors.

"The X PRIZE Foundation is pleased to collaborate with NASA in this important milestone of space flight," said Peter H. Diamandis, the foundation's chairman. "This is a collaboration that works because the X PRIZE Foundation and NASA share the goal of pushing new technologies for space exploration. We look forward to hosting this competition at our X PRIZE Cup Expo."

NASA's Centennial Challenges promotes technical innovation through a novel program of prize competitions. It is designed to tap the nation's ingenuity to make revolutionary advances to support the Vision for Space Exploration and agency goals. NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate manages the program.

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MOON DAILY

Scientists Working To Help Astronauts To Breath Moon Dust

Greenbelt MD (SPX) May 08, 2006
Apollo astronauts on the Moon complained regularly about the dust they encountered. It got everywhere, including into their lungs - which might be what future astronauts end up doing deliberately on long missions. It turns out the Moon's dusty layer of soil is nearly half oxygen.

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