Clark Lindsey is tracking progress up in Mojave today. The window presumably just opened.
[Mid-afternoon update]
Well, that’s it for Masten’s season. No chance to win Level II, but the second-place purse will remain on the table, unless the Pauls Breed can pull out a miracle in the next couple days. They apparently made the first three-minute flight, but had a fire on landing, and burned some sensor cables that they either had no replacements for, or insufficient time to replace within the window. But at least they’ll take the second-place for Level I (again, assuming that Unreasonable Rocket can’t beat their landing accuracy). Good luck to all contenders, now and in the future.
I will note that the 180-second test they did on Tuesday was tethered — Xoie had never flown in free flight, I assume because they simply ran out of time. But that shows why you have to do a full dress rehearsal (as Armadillo learned a couple years ago). It will be interesting to find out what caused the fire, if they can figure it out. Anyway, it’s a shame.
[Bumped]
How about a grass roots X-Prize? If someone set up an escrow account and set a minimum funding level and deadline for the prize to go live I’d contribute. Space libertarians of the world unite!
They havent *quite* called it a season yet, judges havent yet said if they would allow a flight in another window. Thats the word from twitter #ngllc anyway.
an they ARE flying again this morning