On September 13, 2007, the X
PRIZE Foundation and Google
"announced the Google Lunar X PRIZE, a
robotic race to the Moon to win a remarkable
$30 million prize purse. Private companies from
around the world will compete to land a privately
funded robotic rover on the Moon that is capable
of completing several mission objectives, including
roaming the lunar surface for at least 500 meters
and sending video, images and data back to the
Earth."
Nine teams have already indicated that they
intend to enter the competition, which ends
in 2012. Famous robotics developer William
Red Whittaker at Carnegie Mellon University,
for example, said
he plans to compete. Via a previous project,
his team already has a working prototype lunar
robot called Scarab:
Red Whittaker's Scarab prototype lunar rover.
Teams can either pay for a ride
on a low cost rocket company or, like many AMSAT
and student spacecraft, look for a cheap piggyback
opportunity in the launch of a big commercial
satellite.
Look for updates on the competition
on the HobbySpace weblogs Space
Transport News and Space-for-All.
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