Launch Of First Romanian Space Rocket Rescheduled For 2010

The Romanian Aeronautics and Cosmonautics Association (ARCA) planned to launch into space Saturday the first Romanian rocket and the launch was due to take place out at the Black Sea.

The launch planned for Saturday was postponed over bad weather conditions and was rescheduled for next year.

The Helen craft, designed and built by ARCA, is a three-stage orbital rocket and represents Romania's entry in the Google Lunar X Prize competition which aims at sending on the moon a device meant to transmit data on earth.

Created in 2007, Google Lunar X Prize is an international space competition to land a robot on the surface of the Moon, travel 500 meters over the lunar surface, and send images and data back to the Earth. The prize for the winning team is $30 million.

The Romanian Aeronautics and Cosmonautics Association is a non-government organization and national leader in aerospace research. In 2002, ARCA entered the most prestigious space research competition - the Ansari X Prize. ARCA entered the Google Lunar X Prize in 2008 with the following projects: the HAAS satellite launcher and ELE lunar probe.

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