Kentucky Space

Masten wins $1 million lander challenge

Masten Space Systems and Armadillo Aerospace have claimed the first and second place prizes, respectively, in the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander X PRIZE Challenge. The qualifying flight that ultimately lead to the the Level Two first place award can be seen here:

Awarded as part of NASA's Centennial Challenge, the prizes are designed to reward "citizen inventors" in the space technologies.

Wayne

Butterfly Ornithopter

Here's video of butterfly ornithopter in flight. The idea of machines that would mimic the actions of the birds goes back to at least the Greeks, Roger Bacon and Leonardo Da Vinci. I thought the filmwork on this ornithopter was particularly realistic.

Related, you might want to check out this robotics and artificial intelligence blog for a 2008 roundup of last year's events and some predictions for 2009.

Wayne

Wikipedia: Ornithopter

Space Express booster recovered

KySat and Lunar Rocket and Rover have retrieved the booster that may have malfunctioned during the Space Express mission - displayed here - and are working with other experts in hopes of identifying the primary reason for the failure. Thanks, Tyler, for passing the pictures along.

Wayne

Space Express photo vault

Thanks to the efforts of Tyler Doering and Sam Hishmeh, a complete set of images taken during Space Express may be found here.

Wayne

U of L student newspaper writes up Space Express

The Louisville Cardinal published an article today on the KySat Space Express mission, "Launch proves successful without going into space." Key quote:

Kentucky is paving the way to integrating love of learning and appreciation of engineering by giving students the opportunity to become a part of making history.

The Space Express category on the blog has more news and stories about the mission.

Wayne

Murray Ledger and Times: "This IS Rocket Science"

The Murray Ledger and Times on Monday published a piece on the participation of Amber-Rose White and Keith Bux in the KySat Space Express mission. The online article includes a couple of photos of Amber-Rose and Keith holding the dart (capsule), into which the student designed electronics have been integrated.

As always, please send along news about KySat and student participants and I'll be sure to link to it. My email address can be found in the right hand column of the blog.

And if you haven't seen it, check out the launch video. Thanks Tyler for assembling the file and getting it on YouTube!

Wayne

Space Express Launch Video and Photos

White Sands Missile Range just recently released video and photos to KySat. Here is a collection of the photos ending in a video of the launch. 

Tyler

"MSU KySat students receive valuable experience"

Morehead State University posted a news release yesterday about MSU student participation in the KySat Space Express mission. Dr. Ben Malphrus, who serves as the GroundOps lead for KySat and is the space science director at the university, is quoted throughout.

Wayne

Space Express pictures added

I've added a Flickr badge to the blog that displays some of the images taken while in New Mexico for KySat Space Express. I hope you enjoy the pictures, located in the right sidebar (page down to see them), and plan to use the badge - or perhaps other, similar, methods - to provide images of KySat for you.

Wayne

KySat ground control for orbital mission

I missed this story of the KySat Space Express mission from the Daily Independent in Ashland. As noted in the article, the Morehead State University Space Science Center will serve as the main ground control station for the orbital mission in 2008.

Wayne