Armadillo suspense

The commentators also said that they also have to get Pixel back on the truck after the second flight and bring it back to the flight line within that 2.5 hour time frame.

Was that 90 seconds?

I didn't time it, put I bet they did. Since they have enough propellant capacity for 180 seconds I can't believe they would cut it close on the 90 second flight.

There will not be a 2nd flight. Something about damage on landing.

ok, so, the talking head never shut up long enough to let john say what happened........ did anyone catch why it wasn't successfull?

damage to one landing leg and some sort of fire that may have damaged electronics.

No second flight, it seems.

Damage on landing. And they did confirm 90+ seconds on the flight. Seems like their main problems at X cup have been landing gear problems!

Hard landing broke a leg. Small fire burned some of the electronics. Can't try for the second flight.

I wonder if they'll try to fly texel tomorrow. Probably tethered, I doubt they would attempt part 2 of the challenge without having ever flown the vehicle.

You know it's sadly comical but John's assessment of Armadillo embarrassing the big name contractors was spot on. Here I was thinking for years that the DC-X had done that for 10 million or so, yet John and his crew have come very close to equaling the DC-X for 200K.

He's absolutely right, they should be very embarrassed.

And it was that comment that ended the interview. It figures.

it was still an impressive feat.

Congrats John, and crew!!!!

(at least the electronics were burnt, and not shaken!)
/rick

While the shuttle and ISS have cost way more that they should have, I don't think that is true of DC-X. That vehicle cost only 50 times what Armadillo’s vehicle cost and it was hydrogen powered, much larger and not built with free volunteer labor. DC-X is actually a model of how space could be done IMO. The fact that DC-X got cancelled is where the shame is in that program.

But quite right , however with my own experiance, a company existing for several years always requires more money to do the same, due to more costs like, actually paying people as they should receive for their work, education programs, marketing and other investments etc. However with the work John did.. I think indeed it can be done at a lower cost, but I think for a larger company, it will be about 5 Million us$ or so. But maybe for that smaller similar as Armadillo Aerospace inventive companies are important.

EDIT: I see campbelp2002 posted just before me.. I have to agree with him, also remember DC-X didn't had the tools available today.

It takes another 9.8 million to get the big explosion on landing.

As you said the only shame for the DC-X was that it got canceled. I definitely agree that they showed how a program should be run. Unfortunately nobody paid any attention then. Maybe Armadillo will change that.