Twenty-Nine Teams Have Qualified To Compete In The $30 Million
Race To The Moon
The X PRIZE Foundation announced the official roster of 29
registered teams competing for the $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE
on Thursday. The effort is an unprecedented competition to send a
robot to the Moon that travels at least 500 meters and transmits
video, images, and data back to the Earth. This group of teams
signifies this new era of exploration's diverse and participatory
nature as it includes a huge variety of groups ranging from
non-profits to university consortia to billion dollar businesses
representing 17 nations on four continents. The global competition,
the largest in history, was announced in September 2007, with a
winner projected by 2015.
Thursday's announcement reveals seven teams that had not been
previously announced: Mystical Moon of the USA, targeting a global
youth audience as active participants in designing their mission;
Space Il of Israel, aimed to promote scientific awareness among
Israeli youth as well as develop the nation's space industry; Puli
of Hungary, composed of young Hungarian professionals and space
enthusiasts; SpaceMETA of Brazil, a group with experience in
creating start-ups in fields like wireless and power line
communications and design thinking processes; Plan B of Canada,
utilizing existing technologies in software, microprocessors,
communication, guidance, and robotic systems for their technology;
Penn State Lunar Lions of the USA, a combination of students and
faculty and engineers from the Applied Research Laboratory at the
Pennsylvania State University; Angelicum Chile of Chile, a mix of
students, professionals, and entrepreneurs with engineering
backgrounds; Indus of India, led by a serial entrepreneur with more
than ten years of experience in developing new businesses; and
Phoenicia of the USA, a former Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander X
CHALLENGE competitor who has worked for a variety of small groups
and companies interested in building small launch vehicles.
"The official private race to the Moon is on. What I find
amazing is that when we first announced this competition, we
thought there might be a dozen groups talented and bold enough to
compete," said Peter Diamandis, Chairman and CEO of the X PRIZE
Foundation. "Instead, we have nearly 30 teams of heroic innovators
showing us a new way to the Moon."
The announcement of the official roster of registered teams
comes at a time when this new era of lunar exploration has received
great recognition and credibility. Recently, NASA, the U.S. civil
space agency, announced that it will purchase data related to
innovative lunar missions from six Google Lunar X PRIZE teams, with
contracts worth as much as $10 million each. These purchases
demonstrate how public and private space exploration alike will
play an important role in making missions to the Moon financially
sustainable.
"Teams have purchased launch vehicles, they are well into their
design process, and we have even seen NASA recognize the value of
this competition by purchasing data from several competitors,"
continued Diamandis. "I want to congratulate the teams that have
registered. We are excited to see what they will accomplish in the
coming years."
"From the Wright brothers' first flight to the Lewis and Clark
expedition, the most successful and revolutionary discoveries often
come from small, entrepreneurial teams," said Tiffany V.C.
Montague, Manager of Google Space Initiatives. "At Google, we share
with this global group of innovators a passion for tackling tough
technological and scientific challenges, and we wish them the best
of luck as they begin the mission phase."