ALAMOGORDO, New Mexico USA — Nine contenders, including aerospace veterans, a father and son team building spaceships in its garage and a company established solely to win the competition, have signed up for the second staging of the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge (NG-LLC). The challenge is the centerpiece of the Wirefly X PRIZE Cup and Holloman Air and Space Expo.

The NG-LLC, sponsored by NASA's Centennial Challenges Program, is designed to accelerate commercial delopment of technology that can ferry cargo and humans between the Moon's surface and lunar orbit. The 2007 Wirefly X PRIZE Cup and Holloman Air and Space Expo will be held October 27-28 at Holloman Air Force Base in Alamogordo, NM. Attendance at this year's expanded event is expected to reach upwards of 80,000.

Teams competing in the two-level NG-LLC include:

Armadillo's Pixel hovers in a tethered test for last year's X Prize.

Acuity Technologies, Menlo Park, CA: Led by Robert Clark, who founded the company in 1992, the team previously designed Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for the Department of Defense. The team hopes the light weight of their XHopper will give them an advantage in the Challenge.

Armadillo Aerospace, Mesquite, TX: As the only team to fly a vehicle in last year's challenge, Armadillo may have a leg up on the competition. After their successful test flight on June 4, this team of volunteers is anxious to show what they can do this year. They are led by John Carmack, founder of id Software.

BonNova, Tarzana, CA: Allen Newcomb, an engineer who was part of the team that won the Ansari X PRIZE, heads this group. The team, which includes both a fiction author and an IndyCar crewmember, founded the company for the sole purpose of winning the NG-LLC.

Masten Space Systems, Mojave, CA: With a team composed almost entirely of Silicon Valley Internet technology veterans, Masten Space Systems is currently working on launching tethered flights. The company, helmed by David Masten, is currently selling "SodaSats" -- opportunities to launch and recover very small payloads -- for only $99.

Micro-Space, Denver, CO: The Micro-Space team, along with Armadillo Aerospace, is one of two Ansari X PRIZE teams to compete in the NG-LLC. Many of the components of Micro-Space's NG-LLC vehicle have already been successfully flown as components of other high-powered rockets.

Paragon Labs, Denver, CO: This team consists of 16 industry experts from all of the necessary subsystem disciplines and led by Kevin Sagis, founder of Paragon. The team's vehicle is called Volkon.

SpeedUp, Laramie and Chugwater, WY: SpeedUp is the only team using a monopropellant engine for the Challenge. They are led by Robert Steinke, a former employee of NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, and have long-term plans to sell low altitude rocket rides to the general public.

Unreasonable Rocket, Solana Beach, CA: Most of the work from this small team has been done by the father-son pair of Paul Breed and Paul Breed. The members of Unreasonable Rocket are determined to show that a small, family team can compete in serious rocketry, and are building their vehicles in a garage for under $200,000.

The ninth team has requested to remain confidential. Their confidentiality period ends 60 days before the start of the competition at which time the X PRIZE Foundation can publicly announce the name of the team.

"We are excited by the number of teams competing this year and their overall level of sophistication," said Dr. Peter Diamandis, chairman and CEO of the X PRIZE Foundation. "We fully expect to award the $2 million purse this year in what will prove to be an exhilarating showdown between a number of very qualified teams."

The X PRIZE Foundation is an educational nonprofit prize institute whose mission is to create radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity. On October 4, 2004, the X PRIZE Foundation captured world headlines when Mojave Aerospace Ventures, led by legendary aircraft designer Burt Rutan and Microsoft Co-founder Paul Allen, built and flew the world's first private vehicle to space twice in two weeks to win the $10 million Ansari X PRIZE. The Foundation has since expanded its mission beyond space exploration to offer new prizes for breakthroughs in the life sciences, energy and the environment, education and global entrepreneurship.

In October of 2006, the X PRIZE Foundation announced the $10 million Archon X PRIZE for genomics, which will reward the first private effort to map 100 human genomes in 10 days ushering in a new era of personalized preventative medicine.

The Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge is designed to accelerate commercial technological developments supporting the birth of a new generation of Lunar Landers capable of ferrying payloads or humans back and forth between lunar orbit and the lunar surface. Such a vehicle would have direct application to NASA’s space exploration goals as well as the personal spaceflight industry. Additionally, the challenge will help industry develop the operational capacity to launch quick turnaround vertical take-off, vertical landing vehicles, which will be of significant use to many facets of the commercial launch procurement market.

The competition is divided into two levels. Level 1 requires a rocket to take off from a designated launch area, rocket up to 150 feet (50 meters) altitude, then hover for 90 seconds while landing precisely on a landing pad 100 meters away. The flight must then be repeated in reverse—and both flights, along with all of the necessary preparation for each, must take place within a two and a half hour period.

The more difficult course, Level 2, requires the rocket to hover for twice as long before landing precisely on a simulated lunar surface, packed with craters and boulders to mimic actual lunar terrain. The hover times are calculated so that the Level 2 mission closely simulates the power needed to perform the real lunar mission.