Catching Up with Lunar Lander Challenge News

With all of the recent Google Lunar X PRIZE news, I haven't been keeping up to date with the Lunar Lander Challenge news. There's been a lot of that lately, too, but hopefully you've been keeping up with that news at HobbySpace/RLV News. Anyway, here's what's been happening:

The Space Fellowship has a discussion forum on the 2007 X PRIZE Cup. Some of the comments there deal with MicroSpace, and how they're continuing to work on the Lunar Lander although they won't be able to compete at the X PRIZE Cup this year. They're also interested in the Google Lunar X PRIZE as a "Lunar Lander Challenge follow-on".

Meanwhile, Space.com recently posted an article on this year's X PRIZE Cup. This year the even is expected to have even more continuous rocket events happening, and more displays.

As the event approached, and technical difficulties arose, some more Lunar Lander Teams have dropped out of the actual event this year. There's a discussion of this at NASASpaceFlight.

I already posted on Unreasonable Rocket not being able to make it to the competition this year.

Now, SpeedUp has also announced that they won't be able to make it.

Masten also had to make a similar announcement.

I'm giving links to both the RLVNews posts and the competitor announcements because both have interesting comments, so they're all worth checking out.

Meanwhile, Unreasonable Rocket is already looking ahead to next year's Lunar Lander Challenge, and has a big to-do list for the next year. John Carmack recommends a functional backup vehicle in the comments.

As we all know, rocketry isn't easy. Hopefully everyone keeps at it for next year and reaches their goals.