UPDATE. John Carmack writes a long technical update discussing what worked, and what didn't. Fascinating stuff. I love all the little details. [Link]

It has been a long time since I did an update, but it hasn't been because nothing has been going on.  Quite the opposite, in fact -- things have been incredibly busy.  Outside of Armadillo, the big new for me personally was that Id Software, my video game company, was acquired by Zenimax Media.  This doesn't have any real impact on my relative time commitment to Armadillo, since I expect to continue devoting the majority of my time to software for the foreseeable future, but it does mean that I have more personal resources to call on if necessary.

I would have had Phil provide some updates, but he has been overloaded dealing with our FAA/AST waiver applications and other business logistics on top of actual fabrication work.  Our full time head count is going to be going up some soon, so there may be hope for more frequent updates in the future.

This will be the technical update, I'll leave it to Phil and Matt to put together the media and color update.  The X-Prize website has some early videos of the flights, but I expect that there will be some great footage from the NASA TV crew later.

http://thelaunchpad.xprize.org/2009/09/2009-ngllc-videos-of-armadillos.html

Amazing stuff. [Link]

Armadillo Aerospace qualified to win a million dollars of NASA's money today by accomplishing a rocket-powered round trip modeled after a moon landing. The team's remote-controlled Scorpius rocket (formerly known as the Super Mod) blasted off from its Texas launch pad, rose into the sky and floated over to set down on a mock moon landing pad. After refueling, Scorpius blasted off again for what one observer called a "perfect flight" back to the original launch pad.
The judges confirmed that Armadillo satisfied all the contest requirements. Scorpius made pinpoint landings within a meter of each landing pad's center target, according to William Pomerantz, the director of space prizes for the X Prize Foundation.
That means the million-dollar top prize in the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge will definitely be given away this year. But Armadillo's rocketeers will still have to wait another month and a half to find out if they won, while other entrants in the competition try to do the same feat better.