Armadillo Aerospace
| Headquarters | 18601 LBJ FWY, Suite 460 Mesquite , TX 75150 United States |
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Armadillo Aerospace, is currently a NewSpace research and development company in the Aerospace industry. In the near term, Armadillo's goal is in developing a suborbital spacecraft capable of manned spaceflight. They hope to use this capability for space tourism. Their long term goal is manned orbital spaceflight. True to their name an armadillo named "Widget" is the company mascot.
Company Heritage
The company was founded by John Carmak in 2000. He currently personally funds and runs the project. John Carmak is a developer of interactive computer games. Games he has developed include Doom and Quake. As of March 2007 all employees working on Armadillo projects are volunteers.
In their own words: "Armadillo Aerospace is a small research and development team working on computer-controlled LOX/ethanol rocket vehicles, with an eye towards manned suborbital vehicle development in the coming years."[1]
The company current R&D practices are best summed up by "build a little, test a little" This has created a rapid development cycle within Armadillo Aerospace.
The company has been very good at keeping the space development community updated on thier progress and expectations. Their website has a great deal of detail on almost every aspect of thier activities.
Products, Services and Revenue
Armadillo is currently developing vehicles to compete in the Lunar Lander Challenge as part of NASA's Centennial Challenges.
Because the company is currently only a research and development company it currently has no products for commercial use. Current revenue is from individual owner contributions and sponsorships. Armadillo Aerospace announced on August 8, 2006, that it had signed a sponsorship agreement with NVIDIA, a maker of computer graphic equipment.
Armadillo's current vehicles that they are using in NASA's Centennial Challenges, are called "Pixel" and "Trixel"
Historical Events
- First Rocket Test Flight July 2001?
- X Prize Cup October 2005 - One test flight at the event of a engineering test rocket.
- X Prize Cup October 2006 - Their "Pixel" rocket platform, almost won the Lunar Lander Challenge NASA Centennial Challenge.
Joint Ventures and Partnerships
Armadillo has entered into a sponsorship deal with NVIDIA, a leader in graphic interfaces for high performance desktop computers.
Future Plans
Armadillo plans to compete in the 2007 X Prize event, October 2007, in New Mexico, USA.
Links
References
See Also
- JP Aerospace
- Bigelow Aerospace
- Masten Space Systems
- SpaceX - Space Exploratino Technologies, NewSpace company working on private orbital flight.
- Scaled Composites - Winner of the first X Prize.
- XCOR Aerospace
- List of Aerospace Companies