What is the Lunar Lander Challenge to the moon?
http://space.xprize.org/files/img/space/ngllc/ngllc-patch-2009.png …or the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander X Prize Challenge, which is a competition funded by NASA’s Centennial Challenges program. The competition offers a series of prizes for teams capable of launching a vertical takeoff/vertical landing (VTVL) rocket, necessary to achieve the velocity needed for a lunar vehicle to move between the surface of the Moon and its orbit. The first Lunar Lander Challenge was staged in 2006 at Las Cruces International Airport in New Mexico, with four registered teams at the challenge. Unfortunately, only one of them got the final permit by the FAA to continue. It was Armadillo Aerospace, which entered two vehicles, Pixel and Texel. After two initial hazardous landings and a third unsuccessful by Pixel on the target pad, Armadillo was left without any prize money, but the craft made the first successful flight of a private vehicle under the new FAA Experimental Permit. During 2010, the challen
