More Armadillo picts

Russell Blink's flickr photostream has some new pictures including this one showing two rocket racers in the air at the same time.

Update: Looks like Armadillo is planning on burning a lot of methane: Liquid Methane - Federal Business Opportunities.

Update 2: Is Armadillo involved with the mysterious Project M? Russel Blink's photostream - Mar.13.10

Posted 03/12/10 | 22:59:11 by TopSpacer | Filed under: Rocket Racing

Comments

We knew that Armadillo was doing something new with Methane for NASA - from Russell's flickr stream at

http://www.flickr.com/photo...

they get a huge dewar. Wouldn't need a new large dewar unless they where doing new. Thought their last NASA/Methane gig ended when they had all the NASA bigshots out at their HQ and flew the Mod with the methane engine in free flight up and down.

Posted by Ray Alderman at 03/13/10 08:08:59

So how many Quad flights is 70,000 gallons? ;-)

Posted by Stellvia at 03/13/10 08:39:48

Each 36" tank on a Quad is 100 gallons, and there are two tanks for methane (2 for LOX) so 70,000/(2*100) = 350 flights, or equivalent long-duration burns. But that's a minimum: they don't always fly the tanks full to the top.

However, we don't know that all the methane will be used in Armadillo vehicles. The methane going to NASA sites may be used for other projects. It could be that NASA just grouped some requirements into one contract to try to get a better price.

Posted by AshleyZ at 03/13/10 10:37:58

Note that the 99.9% rocket-grade liquid methane also goes to NASA White Sands Test Facility (WSTF) in New Mexico and to Aerojet at Rancho Cordova in California. WSTF has altitude test capability that's been used for an Armadillo methane engine, and for an Apollo Lunar Module RS-18 ascent engine converted from the original hypergols to LOX-methane. Aerojet won the contract for a 5500 lbf followon to the XCOR 5M15 LOX-methane ascent engine tech demonstrator program back in '08, and put out a press release back in July '09 saying engine manufacture was complete, testing to commence real soon now. No news that I can spot since... I'd guess that in addition to Armadillo NASA methane work, this liquid methane supply solicitation means that Aerojet and NASA expect to begin testing the new ascent engine sometime soon.

Posted by Henry Vanderbilt at 03/13/10 13:36:24

> Update 2: Is Armadillo involved with the mysterious Project M? Russel Blink's photostream - Mar.13.10

Hmm... I wonder if John Carmack is going to be in Florida on April 15...

Posted by Neil H. at 03/13/10 20:39:51

Relevant comment to "Project M" and Armadillo over on NSF:

http://forum.nasaspacefligh...

"Haha, you beat me to it. Pixel is just working as a test bed for the ALHAT lidar range finder system... for now :-)"

Posted by Neil H. at 03/14/10 00:53:39

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