DARPA Launch Challenge offers $10M top prize for rapid-turnaround orbital liftoffs

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Almost 15 years after a $10 million competition gave a boost to private-sector spaceflight, the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is kicking off another launch contest with a $10 million grand prize. The DARPA Launch Challenge — officially unveiled here today at the 34th Space Symposium — won’t send people to the edge of space, as the Ansari X Prize did in 2004. But it will introduce some new twists for the launch industry. Contest rules call for teams to be given the full details about where and when they’ll launch, what kind of payload they’ll launch,… Read More