Sunday, May 22, 2011

Prize Roundup: Nanosat Launcher Comment, Make Tech Winner, CAFE and EAA Flight Challenges, More

Student Experiment Microgravity Kit Wins NASA-Make Tech Contest - NASA press release: 

Sponsored by Teachers in Space, a project of the Space Frontier Foundation in Nyack, N.Y, the first "Bring It Back" kits will fly aboard the Excelsior STEM mission scheduled to fly on a Masten Aerospace unmanned suborbital mission later this year. 

Jeff Foust tweets about one of the ISDC 2011 talks:

@: London: NASA's planned $2M nanolaunch prize is a "little light"; estimates it would cost $20-30M to build a nanosat launcher.

Also see Jeff's twitter account for tweets on the Google Lunar X PRIZE ISDC session.

3DHawaii expands with private label product and a great trip giveaway - Google Earth Blog

Zephyr Aurora: Taking Shape [45]: More First Small Holes - Team Phoenicia (see more pictures at their site)

Pipistrel’s Four-seat, Side-by-side Electric Airplane - CAFE Foundation blog: 

This unique design has come about by grafting two Pipistrel Taurus aircraft together with a center section which is some 5 meters (16 feet) wide and includes a center pylon housing the electric engine and batteries designed to successfully carry this aircraft to the skies and hopefully to the completion of the 2011 CAFE/NASA challenge, the design bears some similarity to the twin Mustang fighter and even White Knight Two. ... The goal for the development of this aircraft is to enter and hopefully be successful in completing the 2011 CAFE/NASA green flight challenge which is held between July 11 and July 17, 2011 at the Santa Rosa airport in northern California and then also competing in the EAA AirVenture Electric Flight Challenge held at this year’s Oshkosh event just a few weeks later.