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Googles Lunar Xprize

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  • 08-11-2015 12:31am
    #1
    _Tombstone_
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,006 ✭✭✭


    So the jist of this is - The competition’s $30 million prize purse will be awarded to teams who are able to land a privately funded rover on the moon, travel 500 meters, and transmit back high definition video and images. The first team that successfully completes this mission will be awarded the $20 million dollar Grand Prize. The second team to successfully complete the mission will be awarded $5 million dollars. To win either of these prizes, teams must prove that 90% of their mission costs were funded by private sources. Teams have until the end of 2016 to announce a verified launch contract to remain in the competition and complete their mission by the end of 2017.



    Hadn't heard anything about this in ages, theirs 16 Teams still in the running but their looks like theirs gonna be at least 2 Teams to give it a good go.

    First up is SpaceIL, an Israeli nonprofit, has secured a launch contract with California-based Spaceflight Industries, and will aim to land a rover on the moon in the second half of 2017. It’s the first such launch contract to be verified by the $30 million Google Lunar XPrize competition.

    http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-first-private-lunar-launch-date-has-been-set

    Getting to the moon without government funding for the first time, it turns out, is a bit of a labyrinthine process. To do so, SpaceIL solicited funding from donors around the world, and purchased room for its spacecraft on a Falcon 9 rocket that was built by SpaceX but bought by Spaceflight Industries last September.



    And second up California-based company Moon Express, which aims to fly commercial missions to the moon and help unlock its resources, has signed a five-launch deal with Rocket Lab, with the first two robotic liftoffs scheduled to take place in 2017.

    http://www.space.com/30720-moon-express-private-lunar-launch-2017.html

    These uncrewed launches — three of which are firmly on the books, with the other two optional at the moment — will blast Moon Express' MX-1 lander into space aboard Rocket Lab's 52.5-foot-tall (16 meters) Electron rocket. The goal is to test out the MX-1 and its systems, making sure the spacecraft can land softly on the moon, move about the lunar surface, grab samples and return them to Earth.


    http://lunar.xprize.org/


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