Offers $4.75 Million To Teams Which Complete In-Space Tasks On The Way To The Moon

XPRIZE and Google have announced that $4.75M in additional Milestone Prize money will be available to Google Lunar XPRIZE finalist teams for achieving technological milestones along the way to the Moon.

“XPRIZE and Google are thrilled to offer these additional in-space Milestone Prizes as a further incentive for finalist teams and to recognize the full gravity of these bold technological feats taking place in the race to the Moon,” said Chanda Gonzales-Mowrer, senior director, Google Lunar XPRIZE.

Teams can compete for one or both of the following prizes:

• Lunar Arrival Milestone Prize — The spacecraft must complete one orbit around the Moon or enter a direct descent approach to the lunar surface to win $1.75M.
• Soft Landing Milestone Prize — The spacecraft must transmit data proving it soft-landed on the lunar surface to win $3M.

The Milestone Prize purses will be evenly distributed between all teams who have achieved each milestone by March 31, 2018.

Earlier this year, XPRIZE announced the five finalist teams with verified launch contracts: SpaceIL (Israel), Moon Express (USA), Synergy Moon (International), TeamIndus (India) and HAKUTO (Japan). Additionally, XPRIZE established a mission completion deadline of March 31, 2018, regardless of the initiation date, in order for teams to win the Grand or Second-Place Prizes.

In January 2015, five Google Lunar XPRIZE teams were awarded Milestone Prizes for a combined $5.25M in recognition of advancements in the areas of mobility, imaging and landing technology. If a team ultimately wins the Grand Prize or Second-Place Prize, then the Grand Prize or the Second-Place Prize will be reduced by the amount the team has won in Milestone Prizes.

(Source: XPRIZE news release. Images from file)

FMI: lunar.xprize.org