Initial Flights
On November 14, 2009 and August 4, 2010 ARCA had two unsuccessful launch attempts for their Helen and Helen 2 rockets from the Black Sea. They were followed by the successful launch of Helen 2 at altitude of 40,000 m on October 1, 2010. The flights were intended to test components and the gravitational stabilisation method for the Haas moon rocket.
On April 27, 2010 three crew members flew to an altitude of 5200 m in a hot air balloon to test video transmission and telemetry systems for the rocket.
On June 30, 2011, Moon Express had its first successful test flight of a prototype lunar lander system called the Lander Test Vehicle (LTV) that was developed in partnership with NASA.
Read more about this topic: Google Lunar X Prize
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