Ready to try, try again

Armadillo Aerospace is planning a rerun of this morning's effort to win the $350,000 Level 1 prize in the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge. Armadillo team member Neil Milburn said he pulled the plug on the attempt because of problems with the Module 1 rocket's ignitor.

"We were not getting good fuel flow to the ignitor," Milburn said, and the fix couldn't be made on the pad. The 150-minute clock for the second attempt is due to start at 12:45 p.m. MT, and after the preparations at the pad, the rocket could take off on the first leg of its trip around 1:44 p.m.

One piece of good news: The weather here at Holloman Air Force Base in southern New Mexico is spectacular. Not a cloud in the sky, and nothing that would keep Armadillo's craft from launching.

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"The wind is really light out there. ... It was a zephyr breeze out there," Milburn said.

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If Armadillo wins the $350,000 NASA-backed prize this afternoon, it would go on to try for an even bigger payoff on Sunday. The Level 1 competition requires Armadillo's craft to hang in the air for only 90 seconds. The million-dollar Level 2 prize calls for 180 seconds of hang time - and the landing would be on a more rugged surface.

Armadillo has groomed its more stable Pixel rocket prototype to go for Level 2.