(October 26, 2009 - The Launch Pad) In a competition where everyone is pushing the limits of rocket efficiency, BonNova's rocket stood out as the lightest-weight and smallest vehicle... We at the X PRIZE Foundation have little doubt that once BonNova is up and running, they will find a good amount ...
(October 26, 2009 - Cosmic Log MSNBC) This small cadre of rocketeers - headed by engineer Allen Newcomb, a veteran of the SpaceShipOne development effort at Scaled Composites in Mojave, Calif. - announced on the eve of their scheduled launch attempt that they were dropping out of the race...
"BonNova regrets to announce that we will not be flying in the competition this year," the team said on Sunday in response to an e-mail inquiry. Similar regrets were posted as a Twitter update...
Just a few hours before dropping out, BonNova said it would distribute an update on its plans "as soon as the team gets in from the field" - which suggests that Newcomb and his teammates (including actress, author and sometime space sexologist Vanna Bonta) took one last look at their progress before deciding not to fly today. In an e-mail, the BonNova team said the decision was "extremely painful."
(October 25, 2009) BonNovA's vehicle, Lauryad 1, will launch from Cantil, California using propane and N2O as its propellant. The requirements of Level 1 of the competition challenge teams to simulate a lunar mission and complete two successful flights, with the rocket rising to 50 meters, translating over to a second landing pad, and remaining in the air for at least 90 seconds. The following day, BonNovA will attempt to successfully complete the requirements of Level 2 of the NGLLC with its Lauryad 2 vehicle...
(April 3, 2009 Phoenix, Arizona) BonNovA, a team competing in the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge, was represented at the 2009 Space Access Society conference with attendance by chief engineer Allen Newcomb, Bob Noteboom, and Vanna Bonta. Noteboom presented a team introduction and briefing of the lunar lander vehicle, Lauryad. [Video of the briefing]
The lightweight lander is weighs only 77 pounds dry. The REORPS (Rocket Engine Over-pressurization Release Protection System) has a patent pending.
January 11, 2009 - BonNova announced the first lift off of the Lauryad lunar lander. Video preview at BonNova News.
October 25, 2008 - Armadillo Aerospace took home the $350,000 Level One prize of the Northrup Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge. The team's attempt for the Level Two prize of one million dollars failed, and the Challenge is set to continue. BonNova, having developed a novel rocket engine with successful full duration hot-fire test participated but did not fly in 2008 due to time constraints, and will be competing the Lauryad in the 2009 competition.
August 27, 2008 - BonNova completed a full duration test fire of its Lauryad Level I flight engine of the lunar lander competing in the 2008 Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge X Prize. The radiatively cooled graphite engine ran perfectly for 101 seconds with the nozzle glowing first red, then white hot. Video at Bonnova News.
August 06, 2008 - The NASA-sponsored 2008 Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge is announced! Let the games begin. See how Team BonNova matches up to the other teams.
May 04, 2008 - Team BonNova unanimously elected their mascot this week, a dog named "Auroara Sky." The golden Chow beat out all competition and is now an official rocket dog.
April 16, 2008 - The Lauryad lunar lander rocket engine sustained a successful :54 second hot-fire test using a graphite nozzle. This demonstrates long duration firing of the flight-weight test engine for the Lauryad Lunar Lander. BonNova has filed a provisional patent on the invention.
March 10,2008 - The Lauryad lunar lander rocket engine performed five successful hot-fire tests in a row, at increasing power each test. It performed flawlessly.
SPACE.com intervews Team BonNova chief engineer Allen Newcomb about the Lauryad Lunar Lander.
November 02, 2007 I promised a report about X Prize Cup, and you are in for a treat. I got some pretty good pictures, although I should be honest, and admit that I'll never be a professional photographer (although I did take a picture years ago that got best in show at a County Fair). Anyway, you'll get to see some very cool things on the flip side (BTW, click any of the pictures to see larger versions)
It's kind of like a prizefight where only one boxer shows up. Initially, nine teams signed up to compete in the 2007 Lunar Lander Challenge at the X Prize Cup. Here are photos and a thumbnail sketch of each of the non-flying lunar landers...
June 13, 2007 The organizers of this year's $2 million Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge have just unveiled an upgraded Web site that tells everything the competitors want you to know about their rocket-powered hovercrafts.
"This event and others like it encourage, support, and celebrate the enterprising innovation of pioneers working to give humanity wings. Our neighborhood - this solar system, the cosmos, actually - is so much more vast and amazing than the paltry headlines, insanity, and politics crammed at us daily as so-called news. The beauty of the hood and discoveries that await us are deserving of our attention and mandatory to our survival as a species." - Vanna Bonta
When you were young, did you dream of the day you could hop in your own rocketship and blast off into outer space? Do you still fantasize about what the future may hold? Have you ever wanted to be a part of the current drive to privatize space flight, embodied by the likes of SpaceShipOne and the Ansari X-Prize? Well, now' your chance.
SPACE DAILY 02/07/07 A rocket competing in a NASA Lunar Lander competition has been named 'Lauryad,' after the spaceship from American novelist Vanna Bonta's quantum fiction FLIGHT trilogy...