~BonNova design and engineering. Space . Industry . Transportation . Racing . Fashion . Gift Novelties . http://www.bonnova.com 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. http://www.bonnova.com/news.html 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. http://www.bonnova.com/news.html 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. http://space.xprize.org/ng-lunar-lander-challenge/2008/teams/bonnova 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. http://www.bonnova.com/news.html 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. http://www.bonnova.com/news.html 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. http://www.bonnova.com/news.html SPACE.com intervews Team BonNova chief engineer Allen Newcomb about the Lauryad Lunar Lander. http://www.space.com/xprizecup/video/player.php?video_id=xpc07_bonnova_profile_final2 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) http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/11/2/1919/75628 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... http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/10/lunar-lander--1.html 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. http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/06/13/224377.aspx "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 http://space.xprize.org/lunar-lander-challenge/team_profile_bon_nova.php 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. http://www.uberreview.com/2007/02/win-a-lunar-lander-on-ebay.htm 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... http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/A_Spaceship_For_Sale_On_Ebay_May_Win_Half_A_Million_Dollars_999.html