A NEW PRIZE IN SPACE RACE NASA BACKS MOON VEHICLE CONTEST.

Byline: JIM SKEEN Staff Writer

MOJAVE -- Inspired in part by the X Prize, teams will vie this month in a NASA-backed competition in New Mexico to show off technologies that could be used in a future moon landing vehicle.

As part of a space expo dubbed the X Prize Cup, teams will demonstrate concepts for space vehicles that could ferry humans or cargo back and forth between the lunar surface and lunar orbit. The competition is being held Oct. 20-21 in Las Cruces.

NASA is putting up the competition's $2.5 million in prize money. The event is being managed by the X Prize Foundation and is sponsored by Northrop Grumman, the company that built the lunar lander for the Apollo program.

``As the company that designed and built the original family of Apollo Lunar Modules, and as one of NASA's key partners in helping define the nation's Vision for Space Exploration, we're delighted to partner with the X Prize Foundation to create a forum for new ideas and collaboration that will help return humans to the moon by 2020,'' said Art Stephenson, vice president, space exploration systems for Northrop Grumman's Integrated Systems sector.

One of the companies that had entered the competition is Masten Space Systems, a company that recently moved from Santa Clara to the Mojave Airport. While the company will have a booth at the X Prize Cup, its vehicle is not ready yet for flight.

``It was a bridge a little too far,'' Mike Mealling, the company's vice president, said of the competition. ``There's a saying in our industry that prizes are nice, but it's not a business.''

Masten is working on a vertical takeoff, vertical landing spacecraft called XA-1.0 that will take payloads of about 220 pounds on suborbital flights of over 62 miles in altitude. The company, composed of five people, envisions developing a series of spacecraft, each more capable than its predecessor.

Eventually, the company wants to be in the space tourism business.

For the X Prize Cup, the company will conduct some engine firing demonstrations, Mealling said.

The contest is part of NASA's Centennial Challenges, a prize program modeled in part after the Ansari X Prize, which was won by the Mojave-built SpaceShipOne in 2004. The SpaceShipOne team flew two flights over 62 miles in altitude in less than a week to claim the $10 million prize.

NASA believes X Prize-like competitions will stimulate the development of the kinds of rockets and landing systems the agency will need to return astronauts to the moon. The competitions will also help accelerate the development of the private suborbital space flight industry.

The Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge is divided into two levels of difficulty. Level 1 requires a vehicle to take off vertically from a designated launch area, climb to an altitude of at least 150 feet, remain aloft for at least 90 seconds while traveling horizontally to a landing pad 300 feet away, and then land vertically.

The second level requires a vehicle to take off from a designated launch area, climb to an altitude of 150 feet, hover for 180 seconds, then land precisely on a simulated, rocky, lunar surface 100 meters away.

For both Levels 1 and 2, competing teams have the option to refuel their vehicle before conducting the required return level to the original starting point.

For the more difficult Level 2 competition, the top finisher will receive $1 million, while $500,000 will go to the second-place finisher. The top Level 1 finisher will receive $350,000, while the second-place finisher will receive $150,000.

Any prize not awarded this year can be won in subsequent years.

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Masten Space Systems is building its XA-1.0 for suborbital space flights.