Tue, Sep 22, 2009
Team Selenokhod To Vie For The $30 Million Payout
Team Selenokhod, a Russian group of
engineers and managers, announced its official entry into the
Google Lunar X Prize competition Monday. The $30 million
competition challenges space professionals and engineers from
across the globe to build and launch a privately funded spacecraft
to the moon which is capable of completing a series of
exploration and transmission tasks as outlined in the competition's
official rules. Team Selenokhod, headquartered in Moscow, Russia
with ten group members, is among 20 teams from 44 countries that
are competing for their share of the $30 million prize.
"The contribution progress of
(the) private sector in cosmonautics is (a) worldwide
trend nowadays. The previous international contest, (the) Ansari X
Prize, showed that non-government companies
have (opportunities) to create space technologies needed to
achieve ambitious goals. Team Selenokhod wants Russian companies to
evaluate the experience of their foreign colleagues, to understand
(the) big opportunities of private space exploration and join us in
our challenging project", said Nikolay Dzis-Voynarovskiy,
Selenokhod Team Leader.
Artist's Concept
Team Selenokhod is the first Russian team to enter the Google
Lunar X Prize competition. The team's vehicle, "Selenokhod," is
comprised of two parts - a lander with a communications system and
two small four-wheeled solar powered rovers. Each of the rovers
contains four independent wheels, an HD camera, a solar panel,
rechargeable batteries and a low-gain, omni-directional antenna to
communicate with each other and the lander. Team Selenokhod hopes
to continue Russia's leading example of space exploration by being
the primary team to place the first private rover on the Moon.
Artist's Concept
"It is wonderful to have a team headquartered in Russia
participating in the Google Lunar X Prize," said William Pomerantz,
Senior Director of Space Prizes at the X Prize Foundation. "Russian
scientists and engineers demonstrated amazing capabilities with the
Lunokhod rovers and similar mission during the first race to the
Moon. Now, Nikolay and the rest of his team will be building
on the heritage of those spacecraft to help bring out about 'Moon
2.0' - a new era wherein private companies and national space
agencies collaborate to create a sustainable and robust program of
lunar exploration. That era wouldn't be complete without the
involvement of Russia's talented workforce."
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