Prize Roundup: Masten Achievement, Another Beam Power Qualifier?, Regolith Challenge Closer, More

Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge

I'm sure everyone knows the news about Masten Space Systems qualifying for the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge Level 1 2nd place prize. That's a major milestone that certainly deserves a detailed post all by itself - but that's already been done:

Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge 2009 Resources - Reports, photos, videos and more - RLV News - This valuable resource covers all of the competition events so far, and I'm sure it will cover the next ones as they happen. There's a section on "Oct. 7, 2009 - Wednesday - Masten Space Systems - Level I Mojave Spaceport" that has all of the details and links on yesterday's achievement.

@wikkit - Harlock posted his really great videos of the flights: http://is.gd/45DXI http://is.gd/45DYb The plume looks fantastic with a good camera.

http://is.gd/43vLf - video I shot handheld of the second flight. Kind of dorky, but captures the mood better than tripod video.

The ending of Ben's video after the landing is great.

@mastenspace - RT @Spacevidcast: LIVE tonight: @MMealling talking about #NGLLC & free for all call-ins talking about LCROSS! http://www.spacevidcast.com

Regolith Excavation Challenge

MDI men shoot for the moon dirt - Village Soup has a well-written article about one of this year's Regolith Excavation Challenge teams:

Peter Homer of Southwest Harbor, the 2007 winner of NASA’s Astronaut Glove Challenge, has teamed up with Ben Baxter, owner of Marine Machines in Town Hill, to build a robotic machine to excavate simulated lunar soil for NASA’s 2009 Regolith Excavation Challenge. The top prize is $500,000.

@grncheese - Regolith Challenge team roster http://bit.ly/1eCun

MOON DIGGING COMPETITORS LINE UP (PDF) - California Space Authority lists all 23 teams (this is also linked by Green Cheese Solutions above).

@paulsrobotics - just brought a new sponsor on board for the Regolith Excavation Robot - the AIAA of New England! Check out the... http://bit.ly/2hb6c7

Why haven't we seen pics of your lunar regolith excavator? http://yfrog.com/16kybyj

15 min into run... http://yfrog.com/5hjj1ij

1 foot distance of driving and digging regolith JSC1-A http://yfrog.com/5mkb2oj

@regolith_chal - Doing our airborne particulate monitoring today.

Google Lunar X PRIZE

Students Reach For The Moon - UD Student Group, UDart, Develops Rocket Technology, Tests With Fuels Provided By Wright Patterson Air Force Base - Flyer News (University of Dayton Student Newspaper) - This covers UDART, a student club that is working with Google Lunar X PRIZE team LunaTrex.

@openmoon - c-rove´s spoke optimization finished - installation this evening

@OmegaEnvoy - Awesome story on FOX 35 News today on the Omega Envoy Project, have a look: http://bit.ly/1SYMqJ #GLXP

@Team_Selenokhod - The mockup of Selenokhod rover will be unveiled on Moscow State University (MSU) Festival of Science www.festivalnauki.ru Stay tuned!

Beam Power/Climber Challenge

Another possible contender emerges… - The Space Elevator Blog describes the National Space Society team's upcoming qualification attempt:

Next Monday and Tuesday, October 12th and 13th, the team from NSS will be at the TRUMPF facility in Plymouth, Michigan, testing and validating their Climber and power-control system. Personnel from both Spaceward and NASA-Dryden will be there too, along with yours truly.

And then there were four. Well maybe. - Space Elevator Games

Aviation Prizes

Current List of GFC Teams - CAFE Foundation - I count 30 teams at the moment.

Z-Prize at NCDC “One Mind, One Heart, One Corridor” - Airship Z-Prize

Other Prizes

Cheap Contest Series? - Guest blogger John Hare at Selenian Boondocks is considering a series of "cheap contests" to follow up on the recent one there:

I am looking for real world ways of confirming or busting some of my concepts within my budget. ... I’m looking for feedback on if this series can and should be started.

@nasaprize - Just completed an interview with Bloomberg TV on NASA's involvement in incentive prizes

ESMD Space Grant 2010 Research Paper Competition - NASA Exploration System Mission Directorate - There are 4 $3,500 scholarship prizes for the 4 topics:

Ground Operations
Lunar and Planetary Surface Systems
Propulsion
Spacecraft