Operator: Axiom Research LabsRegistered Team: Team Indus, a Google Lunar X Prize teamMission type: Lunar RoverProposed Launch date: Q4-2015Proposed trajectory: 9 Steps to Moon1. G1 – Initial Orbit: 880 x 71,000 km2. G2 – 48 hours3. G3 – 144 hours4. G4 – Lunar Transfer Trajectory5. S1 – Initial Lunar orbit with capture burn of 250 seconds6. S2 – Orbit lowered to 3500 km apolune7. S3 – Parking orbit – 100 x 100 km8. S4 – Orbit lowered 12.6 km perilune9. Descent Trajectory – braking from 1.7 km/sLaunch vehicle:PSLV operated by ISRO (proposed)Launch site:SDSC, Sriharikota (proposed)Mission duration:Flight duration: 30 daysSurface operations: 10-15 daysOrbital parameters:Earth Inclination : 19.2 degreesMoon Inclination: 143 degreesArgument of Perigee: 178 degreesDelta – V:Orbital – 1270 m/sDescent – 1940 m/sNet – 3210 m/sMass:Lift off Mass: ~ 600kgsPropellant Mass: ~ 404 kgLanded Mass: ~210 kgTotal Lunar Payload mass: ~ 20kgs
The new investors in the venture include Subrata Mitra & Shekhar Kirani of Accel Partners (they have invested in their individual capacities), Sharad Sharma, former Yahoo India R&D head, Vivek Raghavan, chief product manager of UIDAI (the Aadhaar project), Pallaw Sharma, director of analytics at Microsoft based in Redmond, Bala Parthasarthy, serial entrepreneur and part of the AngelPrime angel investor group, Sunil Kalra, entrepreneur & investor, Paras Chopra and Pallav Nadhani, both founders of successful startups.
The Google Lunar XPrize, which carries $40 million in prize money, also requires that a rover will dismount from the landing craft and travel 500 metres on the lunar surface, and take high quality images.
Going by the latest reviews of the project by top space scientists, Team Indus could well achieve its mission. V Adimurthy, a senior ISRO advisor and designer of the Mars orbiter mission, said about two years ago, when he first met Team Indus, there were many loose ends. "Three months ago there was another review, and what I saw made very good sense. It has become a very feasible project, and I think they can do it," he said.
For Team Indus, a huge boost came in February, when Google Lunar XPrize named the team among the five finalists for what it called milestone prizes -teams that had achieved certain technological landmarks and appeared closest to reaching the final objective. Team Indus was among three named for the landing system and among four named for the imaging system. Only two US teams -Astrobotic and Moon Express -were named in all three categories, including the rover. Since the landing system is regarded the most complicated and carried the highest prize money (of $1 million), Team Indus was seen as No. 3 in the race.
Another big boost came three months ago when senior Indian space scientists did a design review and showered the team with praises. "We had tears in our eyes when we heard the fantastic evaluation," says Narayan. V Adimurthy, the Mars orbiter mission designer for ISRO, has recommended to ISRO that Team Indus be provided launch network and ground services. Team Indus will also need ISRO's launch vehicle when the project is ready, and lots more funding in the months to come.
The 9 awarded Milestone Prizes are as follows:Astrobotic (US): IMAGING ($250,000), MOBILITY ($500,000), LANDING ($1M)Hakuto (Japan): MOBILITY ($500,000)Moon Express (US): IMAGING ($250,000), LANDING ($1M)Part-Time Scientists (Germany): IMAGING ($250,000), MOBILITY ($500,000)Team Indus (India): LANDING ($1M)
From the Indiatimes link"Team Indus requires $35 million to build the final pieces and launch the craft."With $25M left in the prize pot, that means that Team Indus will be $10M in the red, even if they win!
So you don't now anticipate any funding challenges?(The team needs about $35 million.) It will still be a challenge. But the good news is, some of our ideas and theories stand validated. We hope to get one large global consumer brand to sponsor half of our requirements. The other half we will raise through equity . For that, the support I have seen among Silicon Valley entrepreneurs gives hope.
Quote from: Steven Pietrobon on 01/27/2015 06:43 amFrom the Indiatimes link"Team Indus requires $35 million to build the final pieces and launch the craft."With $25M left in the prize pot, that means that Team Indus will be $10M in the red, even if they win!I am guessing that none of the teams can hope to get out of the red, hope Google will increase the prize money.
We will land on the moon, being first will be icing on the cake: Rahul Narayan
We will definitely land on the moon. It will be icing on the cake to be the first one to do it. We are not the kind of people who are happy to settle for second place.
Quote from: seshagirib on 01/28/2015 03:17 pmQuote from: Steven Pietrobon on 01/27/2015 06:43 amFrom the Indiatimes link"Team Indus requires $35 million to build the final pieces and launch the craft."With $25M left in the prize pot, that means that Team Indus will be $10M in the red, even if they win!I am guessing that none of the teams can hope to get out of the red, hope Google will increase the prize money.Yeah, the fatal flaw in the GLXP is that the prize amounts are just too low to justify the cost.If SpaceX can manage to greatly lower launch costs, maybe the current prize amounts would make sense in 5 or 10 years, but not today.
Quote from: ChrisWilson68 on 02/10/2015 04:14 amQuote from: seshagirib on 01/28/2015 03:17 pmQuote from: Steven Pietrobon on 01/27/2015 06:43 amFrom the Indiatimes link"Team Indus requires $35 million to build the final pieces and launch the craft."With $25M left in the prize pot, that means that Team Indus will be $10M in the red, even if they win!I am guessing that none of the teams can hope to get out of the red, hope Google will increase the prize money.Yeah, the fatal flaw in the GLXP is that the prize amounts are just too low to justify the cost.If SpaceX can manage to greatly lower launch costs, maybe the current prize amounts would make sense in 5 or 10 years, but not today.Listen to latest TMRO (spacevidcast) show in regards to the prize amount. It was never designed for winning team to get rich.
http://gadgets.ndtv.com/science/features/eyes-on-the-xprize-inside-team-indus-indias-moonshot-thinkers-784239
A name with less than 24 characters will be micro-etched on a 2 inch by 2 inch black cube, which, along with a rover ( a small tank-like robot) will be dropped on the moon by a capsule (spacecraft)Team Indus is looking to micro-etch 1.4 million names on the tiny cube. At Rs 500 collected for every name, it would earn the company Rs 70 crore , a sort of crowdfunding initiative...But Rs 70 crore is still less than the total estimated project cost of $70-80 million (over Rs 400 crore).Team Indus is in talks with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to carry the rover on a PSLV ( Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) sometime around September 2017. The deal is likely to be signed within two months....Former Infosys CEO Nandan Nilekani, Flipkart’s Sachin Bansal and automobile designer Dilip Chabria have reportedly started funding the project.
Team Indus and the Lunar X PrizeTeam Indus has made reasonable progress so far. The mission concept was formulated in 2012 and systems design started a year later. A major motivational boost came from winning one of the milestone prizes worth $1 million for landing technology in January 2015. All going well, the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) will launch Team Indus into space through a dedicated polar satellite launch vehicle in September 2017. Team Indus has serious global competition of course, but is currently rated among the top three firms in the race for the prize.
As Rahul Narayan, chief executive, and Vivek Raghavan, adviser, explained it to me, the Team Indus spacecraft’s lunar descent will start at 12.6km above the surface of the moon, with the spacecraft travelling at 1.69km/s (Mach 5+). The landing zone is selected 700km downstream from the descent point and the entire descent will take about 900 seconds. The descent needs to be completely autonomous, since the time needed to tele-command the spacecraft from earth is too long.Since the moon has no atmosphere, the engines need to be fired to reduce the velocity to land on the moon. The spacecraft has one main engine delivering 460 newton (N) of thrust and 16 thrusters of 22N that are used to kill the velocity and control the spacecraft. The descent is guided by a number of sensors including a laser altimeter, two lunar descent cameras and four laser range finders. The firing of the engines is computed using the inputs from sensors to follow a fuel optimal trajectory to achieve touchdown.There are five phases during descent. The navigation and guidance strategies are different for each phase of descent. The spacecraft mass at the beginning of descent is 400kg and it burns 200kg of fuel during descent. The spacecraft speeds need to be less than 1m/s in both the vertical and lateral direction at touchdown.
There's also the question of whether ISRO can provide accounting information to satisfy GLXP that Team Indus really is paying the full cost of the flight. There's been controversy in the past about whether costs quoted by India for their launchers really include all costs.
Fr space agency CNES & Axiom Research Labs India sign LoI: 3DPlus France to provide Team Indus lunar rover cameras
Imagine, design and build a project that would catalyse the evolution of mankind as a sustainable multi-planetary species. We believe that for mankind to evolve into a multi-planetary species, sustainable living is key.That means your team of upto three people have to conceive your project from the point of view of sustainability. It could range from investigating how seeds grow in space through to examining new possibilities in renewable energy. The project should fit the dimensions of a soda can, and weigh under 250 grams. It should also be able to connect with the on-board computer.Register before the 20th of August, 2016, write a short concept note, upload project drawings and share a video on why your project should fly to the moon. Shortlisted entries will be asked to build a prototype and invited to showcase it to an international jury at the TeamIndus HQ in Bangalore, India, early next year. The winning project will get to ride to the moon!
France-India space cooperation CNES joins Indian Team Indus mission French technology to fly to the Moon in 2017At the Toulouse Space Show, where India is guest of honour, CNES signed an agreement with Indian firm Axiom Research Labs to contribute to the Team Indus mission that is set to land a module and rover on the Moon in 2017. France will supply latest-generation CMOS micro-cameras developed in partnership with French firm 3DPlus.Tuesday 28 June at the Toulouse Space Show, where India is guest of honour, CNES President Jean-Yves Le Gall and Rahul Narayan, Director of Axiom Research Labs, signed a letter of intent to fly leading-edge French technology on an Indian lunar rover for the first private mission to the Moon. CNES is thus teaming up with Axiom Research Labs to conduct a lunar landing in 2017 and CASPEX (Colour cmos cAmera for SPace EXploration) micro-cameras will equip sensors designed to aid the rover’s progress by detecting ground obstacles in the path of its wheels.This partnership plays into CNES’s strategy of developing closer ties with the new generation of players from the NewSpace sphere, in which India is a prime mover. In so doing, CNES is demonstrating its ability to innovate and adapt. India’s historic partnership with CNES dates back to 1964, when it signed its first space cooperation agreement with France.The CASPEX micro-camera is built around complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology using integration methods patented by 3DPlus that reduce the size of an optical imaging instrument by a factor of ten. CASPEX is reprogrammable and radiation-tolerant, making it suited to a range of space missions. Produced by 3DPlus, a firm located in Buc, France, it will be making its first flight for this mission. Team Indus is led by Bangalore-based start-up Axiom Research Labs, the figurehead of the NewSpace movement in India. Team Indus is competing in the Google Lunar X Prize.On the occasion of this signature, Jean-Yves Le Gall commented: “CNES must look for excellence where it is to be found, for today’s space technology will drive tomorrow’s technology revolutions and growth. In joining forces with Team Indus on this mission to land a rover on the Moon in 18 months’ time, CNES is showing that innovation in France has a key role to play in NewSpace. These new players are doing things differently and working to short schedules by deploying innovative methods. The average age of our new partners is 30, so we will learn as much from them as they will from us.”
BENGALURU: For the first time ever, a private space venture in India has been contracted to carry a payload to the moon for a global space agency. The venture, Bengaluru-based Team Indus, among the frontrunners in the Google XPrize competition to put a privately funded craft on the moon by December 2017, will carry a new line of state-of-the-art cameras for France's national space agency CNES.
There will be no exchange of money in this contract. CNES, which has for long worked with ISRO, gets to test its new cameras and partner with a venture that's developing innovative technologies expected to bring down space mission costs and reduce launch timelines. Team Indus gets cameras that it needs for the mission - they will aid the rover's progress on the moon by detecting ground obstacles in the path of its wheels - and for which it would otherwise have had to pay over $500,000.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/French-space-agency-ropes-in-Indias-Team-Indus-to-carry-payload-to-moon/articleshow/53053505.cms?QuoteBENGALURU: For the first time ever, a private space venture in India has been contracted to carry a payload to the moon for a global space agency. The venture, Bengaluru-based Team Indus, among the frontrunners in the Google XPrize competition to put a privately funded craft on the moon by December 2017, will carry a new line of state-of-the-art cameras for France's national space agency CNES.QuoteThere will be no exchange of money in this contract. CNES, which has for long worked with ISRO, gets to test its new cameras and partner with a venture that's developing innovative technologies expected to bring down space mission costs and reduce launch timelines. Team Indus gets cameras that it needs for the mission - they will aid the rover's progress on the moon by detecting ground obstacles in the path of its wheels - and for which it would otherwise have had to pay over $500,000.
The propulsion systems that will be used on their spacecraft next year is of a kind that has never been used before for a mission of this sort. Team Indus engineers realised that the usual route to landing a spacecraft on the moon, using engines of variable thrust, was closed to them as countries closely guard their propulsion technology.
No off-the-shelf variable-thrust satellite engines were available to them. There was no time to develop new engines anyway, even if the company managed to put together the expertise to develop them. So the Indian team took a decision: use a combination of small fixed thrust engines and produce the same effect using control algorithms. "We are trying to accomplish in software what we cannot do in hardware," says M Jayaraman, a former ISRO propulsion expect who is now advising Team Indus.
By being in Bengaluru, Team Indus hopes to launch with ISRO, but no contract has been signed yet. In any case, the Team Indus satellite has been designed keeping in mind the capabilities of ISRO's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). At a launch weight of 600 kilograms, it is well within the weight restrictions of this versatile rocket.
The algorithms are critical as they are used for controlling the main engine and the 16 engines that are used for maneuvering by the satellite. Team Indus will use 16 fixed thrust engines in various combinations to achieve variable thrust during descent to the moon. "It is one step beyond Chandrayan-1," says Srinivas Hegde, who is heading the mission control for Team Indus.
He adds that IDXA is in the midst of getting funding for the launch of the Independence X rover – a lunar drone spacecraft running on the team’s own Independence-4 engine – in August 2017 by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle.If all goes well, it will be the first Malaysian spacecraft to be launched through ISRO. As Izmir explains, “[we] developed the technology here [in Malaysia]”.Almost every component of the craft is built by the team, except for the communication systems. Even the test chambers are built by IDXA.“We need €23 million (RM106.6 million) for the project,” says Izmir, “€20 million (RM92.7 million) for the launch, and €3 million (RM13.9 million) for logistics and cost of the spacecraft.”He adds if successful, it will be the cheapest launch programme to the Moon ever. “The cheapest right now is India’s Moon mission Chandrayaan 1 which cost €80 million (RM370.85 million).”
Speaking to TOI on Friday , Isro chairman A S Kiran Kumar said that India's first private lunar mission by Team Indus will be launched by Isro's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). “The launch will be from Sriharikota,“ he said.Asked if Isro and Team Indus have firmed up the agreement related to the launch he replied “yes.“
Current plans envisage the Team Indus mission being provisionally launched on September 21, 2017, and reaching the moon about a fortnight later
The startup has developed a Lunar rover named Indie, which is set to take flight on an unmanned spacecraft, also in the prototyping stage at Team Indus’ facility in Bengaluru. “She (Indie) is going to be heading to the moon in 2017. Team Indus is close to 85 engineers and over two dozen retired ISRO scientists. The engineering team is actually very young, we’ve got an average age of around 25 years and having the scientists from ISRO, these guys have built India’s mission, so it makes a lot of sense with them guiding us towards our ultimate goal,” says an enthusiastic Justin Alva, a member of Team Indus’ outreach team.
The rover Indie is a four-wheel drive which can be controlled remotely from Earth. Each wheel is designed in aluminium to sustain the unpredictable and rough terrain on the surface of the Moon. Alva tells us, “each wheel is independently driven, and she’s got these amazing cameras that help her plan routes. The lunar surface is dusty and it's really abrasive, that’s why we have aluminium wheels that will ensure that navigation is not a problem. She can take on craters, she can take on rocks.”
At 10Kgs Indie will be capable of transmitting high definition images from the Moon, back to Earth. It will take approximately 4 seconds for Indie to execute a command given from Earth. Once the unmanned spacecraft lands on the Moon, Indie will use Team Indus’ proprietary pan tilt mechanism to connect back to Earth and beam back high definition lunar images.
It would be very, very remarkable if this private effort manages to get to the lunar surface before Chandrayaan-2, and a bit of an awkward moment for ISRO if that happens. Best of luck to Indie and Team Indus !
It wouldn't matter as the purpose of both the projects are different.The former's objective is simply to land and run a rover upto 500 meters,the later's is not just to land but to carry out various scientific studies.
"We have signed a launch services agreement with Team Indus which essentially provides a PSLV launch for launching a lunar orbiter and lander sometime in the fourth quarter of 2017," Rakesh Sasibhushan, Chairman and Managing Director of Antrix Corporation - the commercial arm of ISRO, Bengaluru - told NDTV.
Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) will build an extended version of its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) to carry the lunar rover and lander to the moon. Antrix Corp, the commercial arm of Isro signed the deal with Team Indus, an Antrix official confirmed the development. Team Indus declined comment.
Bengaluru: To win the international Google Lunar XPrize, a private team must build a rover, launch it to the moon, ensure it travels for at least 500 metres on the lunar surface and sends back hi-def images and videos all by December 2017. And the only team from India and still in the race is cutting it real close. TeamIndus, based out of Bengaluru, India, hopes to make it in the last week of the last month of the contest onboard a PSLV rocket. The detail was finalised earlier this month, historic because it is ISRO’s first sale of its launch vehicle to a private entity.
As per the agreement with ISRO, India’s premier space agency will carry the TeamIndus Spacecraft in a launch window that begins on December 28, 2017. ISRO’s PSLV will inject the spacecraft into an elliptical orbit of 880 km x 70,000 km around the earth, before the spacecraft undertakes a 21-day journey to soft-land in Mare Imbrium, a region in the north-western hemisphere of the moon. After landing in Mare Imbrium, the spacecraft will deploy all its payload including the TeamIndus Rover that will traverse 500 metres on the moon’s surface to accomplish its Google Lunar XPRIZE objectives.
Team Indus is certainly leaving their launch very late! Any slip and they won't make the Google deadline to "complete their mission by the end of 2017."
Yes. Not sure, why they are cutting it so fine. Could it be the non availability of launcher / launch pad, at an earlier date? maybe due to ISRO's prior launch commitments?
I would imagine it was Team Indus that asked for a date as late as possible, to give them time to have the spacecraft ready.
The XPRIZE verification of Team Hakuto’s launch agreement with India’s Team Indus boosts the number of approved competitors to five. That includes Team Indus as well as Moon Express, Synergy Moon and SpaceIL.
The team’s arrangement calls for sharing a ride to the moon with Team Indus, a competitor, on a PSLV launch vehicle to be sent up from Satish Dhawan Space Center in India around Dec. 28, 2017. That’s just a few days before the deadline for winning a share of the $30 million Google Lunar XPRIZE purse.
According to the latest reports, researchers in Kolkata have developed a payload that will share the ride with TeamIndus’s lunar rover and will land on the moon before the Republic Day of India.“The four-kg payload would be installed atop a lunar lander that a Bengaluru-based private company Team Indus is planning to send to the moon in December 2017. We have signed a deal with Team Indus. The country’s trusted Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) engineered by India’s space agency ISRO would be carrying the lander and at least two rovers to the moon,” said Sandip Kumar Chakrabarti, Head of thade Indian Center for Space Physics in Kolkata.The instrument will study outer space environment of the lunar surface. The spacecraft has sophisticated X-ray sensors and small but powerful computer to analyse the data.
Later, Ayrault met Rahul Narayan, CEO of leading Indian “NewSpace” start-up, Axiom Research Labs.
As TeamIndus races to design an all-terrain rover by end-2017 for this lunar mission, the French Space Agency will provide it with cameras, the release said.In the presence of the Minister, Narayan and Le Gall signed an agreement for equipping Axiom Research Lab’s lunar rover with two latest-generation CASPEX micro-cameras, developed by CNES in partnership with French firm 3DPlus.In joining forces with Team Indus on this first private mission to land a rover on the moon, CNES is sending French technology for the first time on lunar terrain, the release said.
As TeamIndus races to design an all-terrain rover by end-2017 for this lunar mission
QuoteAs TeamIndus races to design an all-terrain rover by end-2017 for this lunar missionIf they're still designing their rover, that doesn't leave much time to build and test it before launch.
Perhaps their priority is less about winning the prize, and more about catching the attention of the country and its govt. An Indian 'private' effort at moon landing?? Did I miss something?
Quote from: vineethgk on 01/10/2017 06:34 amPerhaps their priority is less about winning the prize, and more about catching the attention of the country and its govt. An Indian 'private' effort at moon landing?? Did I miss something? As it became clear Rutan was likely to win the original X Prize, some of the other competitors said similar things -- winning the prize wasn't the most important thing, and they were more focused on commercial success or some other goal, whether they won the prize or not. And then none of them ever flew anything.Live by the prize, die by the prize.
A Bengaluru start-up says donors to its moon lander project will be immortalised.Indians are being offered the opportunity to leave their name on the moon, for a price. Space start-up TeamIndus will get the names of public ‘donors’ micro-engraved on a small-sized aluminium object, which will be placed on the lunar surface when its lander descends on the moon. The bill: ₹500 per name.
Beer Brewing Experiment by yeast research Team shortlisted by Team Indus as one of the potential payloadhttp://www.space.com/35431-moon-beer-brewing-experiment-team-indus.html
Quote from: chota on 01/24/2017 12:11 pmBeer Brewing Experiment by yeast research Team shortlisted by Team Indus as one of the potential payloadhttp://www.space.com/35431-moon-beer-brewing-experiment-team-indus.htmlThis is a critical experiment, if you can't brew beer on moon, colonisation is doomed. They need follow up with growing hops and barley in lunar soil.
Team Indus, the private initiative to land a rover on the Moon, received 3,000 entries from 15 countries including the US, the UK, Peru, Italy and India for its Lab2Moon competition, announced in July last year, to select experiments to be carried as payloads on its rover.From those entries, 15 have been shortlisted, including an inflatable dome that could help humans live on the Moon, an experiment to see how hardy microorganisms adapt to conditions on the Moon, and even a project that seeks to produce oxygen on the Moon. The projects are mostly by youngsters, many of them college students.
On Wednesday , a jury consisting of former ISRO chairman K Kasturirangan, French space agency CNES's former chairman Alain Bensoussan, and professor of astrophysics at Yale University Priyamvada Natarajan will select a maximum of eight winners from the shortlisted 15.
Bengaluru-based The Lunar Leap is looking to send Tardigrades, micro-animals considered capable of withstanding some of the most severe environmental conditions, to the Moon and study their survival behaviour. "This will help us learn more about their DNA structure, learn what makes them so tough, and even culture those strands in human cells," said Keertivardhan M Joshi, one of the three team members, all employees of the National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL) but participating in their personal capacities.
"Teams Callisto, Ears and Kalpana from India, Space4Life from Italy, Lunadome from Britain, Killa Lab from Peru and Regolith Revolution from the U.S. have qualified to fly their experiments to the lunar surface in our spacecraft," said a TeamIndus statement.
Inside, across a large hall, a team of over 100 professionals, mostly youngsters in the average age group of 25 years, are buckling down to accomplish what is being touted as a historic project—the world's first privately-funded mission to not only build and 'soft-land' a spacecraft on the moon,
Although missions to the moon have been conducted by five countries so far—the erstwhile Soviet Union, the US, Japan, China and India—apart from the European Space Agency, only three nations (the US, Russia and China) have successfully accomplished a soft landing on the moon, as against a ‘crash landing'. If Team Indus succeeds in its mission, India will be the fourth country on that list.
If all goes as per plan, Team Indus will hoist the Tricolour on the moon's surface on January 26—India's Republic Day—next year after undertaking a journey of 21 days in space. It will also be able to fulfill the terms of the Google Lunar XPrize (GLXP), thereby becoming eligible to win a total of $30 million in prize money.
The start-up has already won a ‘Milestone Prize' of $1 million for its ‘lunar lander' design in 2015. If Team Indus, indeed, becomes the first team to fulfill all the mission requirements, it could win $20 million as the grand prize.
If it's the runner-up, it would still win $5 million. Only five teams, including Team Indus, remain in the running now. The others are SpaceIL (Israel), Moon Express (the US), Synergy Moon (an international team made up of members from over 15 different nations) and Hakuto (Japan). The deadline for completing the project is December 31 this year.
Over the next few months, members of Team Indus, the Bengaluru-based startup that will send a privately funded spacecraft to the moon this year, will tour the country and visit over 36,000 schools to raise awareness about their mission.
The ‘Moonshot Wheels’ campaign, will consist of a mobile vehicle that will tour the country to educate children about astronomy and space.
According to the team, the company has almost finished building its 600-kg-plus moon lander.
The team also put forward an offer. By paying ₹500, you can have your name micro-engraved on an aluminium plate, which will be placed on the moon.
Team Indus, a Bengaluru start-up aspiring to be the first Indian private space company, signed a contract with ISRO’s commercial arm Antrix Corporation for a launch but is now awaiting clearance for the launch ahead of a December 31 deadline.
Team Indus and a Japanese team, Hakuto, are contracted to fly on ISRO’s PSLV XL rocket on December 28, 2017, three days before the closure of the deadline for the Google X Prize contest. The two teams will share the nearly $30 million commercial cost for the launch.
“The necessary approvals for launch of the Team Indus moon mission has not yet concluded. An MoU was signed last year by Antrix Corporation and Team Indus. The launch service has to be authorised by the government and the approval process is going on,” Antrix chairman and managing director Rakesh Sasibhushan said. Sources in ISRO said the MoU is under scrutiny and various questions are being asked about the nature of the launch, the Google Lunar X Prize competition and intellectual property issues involved.
The mission is expected to cost Team Indus in the range of $ 70 million to build its moon rover and spacecraft from scratch and to launch it to the moon.
Bengaluru: Team Indus, the private initiative to land a rover on the Moon, is looking to raise $40 million through a mix of corporate sponsorship and crowdfunding before its scheduled lunar rover mission launch in December.
"Our spacecraft structure is ready. The software and the mission command centre is up and running and is undergoing testing. This mission is challenging. ISRO's Chandrayaan 1 was an orbital mission, while our spacecraft has to land on the Moon," said Narayan. He, however, noted that the company could take some liberties because the mission is a short, landing-focussed one. The flight testing of the spacecraft and payloads will happen next month at ISRO's facility.
Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) will launch its Chandrayaan-2 mission, an advanced version of its previous 2018 mission with the objective of deeper lunar surface probe, and another mission by Team Indus, a group of space enthusiasts who want to unfurl the tricolour on the moon's surface as part of a global lunar competition.
Team Indus, comprising mostly young engineers and led by IIT-Delhi alumnus Rahul Narayan, is planning the mission as part of a global contest to win $30 million Google Lunar XPRIZE, which stipulates the rover of a competing team has to move 500 metre on the moon's surface and should be able to beam back high-definition images back to Earth.
Confirming the use of PSLV service for the Team Indus project, Isro chairman A S Kiran Kumar told TOI, "Team Indus has signed an agreement with Antrix (Isro's commercial arm) for using the launch service of PSLV."Explaining the difference between the two missions, the Isro chairman said, "Both the missions are scientifically and technically totally different. Even the instruments used in the two spacecrafts will be different. There is no question of any comparison."Team Indus is using the service of PSLV to take its 600-kg baby spacecraft to the lunar orbit.
General question - with all these (not surprising) schedule shifts to the right, what are the odds the deadline also gets shifted a few months months into 2018?
The deadline to land on Moon is now extended to March 31 next year instead of December 31 this year, according to hosts Google and XPRIZE.Lone Indian Moon landing contestant TeamIndus and its four global competitors on Wednesday got a three-month extension from contest organisers to complete their space feat.The deadline to land on Moon is now extended to March 31 next year instead of December 31 this year, according to Google and XPRIZE who announced the contest a few years back.
New Delhi (Sputnik) — India's first privately funded lunar mission TeamIndus has got an extension of deadline for launching its moon rover for the $30 million Google Lunar Xprize (GLXP).TeamIndus and its global rivals now have to complete their missions by March 31, 2018 irrespective of the launch date. Earlier, GLXP organizers had fixed the launch date as December 31, 2017."The launch date is not a factor anymore. The teams will have to complete their missions by March 31, 2018," read a GLXP statement.TeamIndus' will launch the rover with the help of Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO)'s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). The mission was set to begin on 28 December 2017, but the latest extension gives it more time to run tests.
I can only imagine ISRO's embarrassment if team indus succeeds and Chandrayaan-2 fails....
In ISRO we trust!https://medium.com/teamindus/in-isro-we-trust-8ce42f6c7c78
Last month, the judges returned to check the preparedness six months ahead of launch. "We got the thumbs up to start building the final spacecraft and in six months' time we will be launching and landing on the moon.
#2: Propulsion systemThe primary engine on the spacecraft is a liquid rocket engine with a thrust capability of 440 N for major maneuvers. It is accompanied by sixteen small 22 N thrusters for finer orbital maneuvers and directional control.
I believe the engines are from ISRO. The 440 N engine should be the LAM (Liquid Apogee Motor) and the 22 N altitude control engines should also be the ones that ISRO uses on most of its satellites needing self propulsion (GSAT, Mangalyaan to name a few).
TeamIndus and Isro have not made it public yet but they have called off the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle launch contract signed for the GLXP mission. A host of issues led to this decision though primary among them is a payment cycle gone awry. A chartered PSLV flight costs anywhere between $25-30 million.TeamIndus continues its fund-raising efforts though it’s not clear whether it would go for an independent moon mission in 2018 or later or take a different growth path altogether.What was supposed to be a banner year for the Bengaluru company, hasn’t begun well but it could still have an expected endAs far as long shots go, this was truly a moonshot—both literally and otherwise. A true leap of faith which rallied nationalistic sentiments and tens of millions of dollars in angel funds. But in the end, this moonshot seems to have fizzled out. The launch contract that TeamIndus signed with Antrix Corporation—the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro)—in December 2016, in pursuit of its $30-million Google Lunar XPRIZE goal, has been cancelled. Multiple sources within Isro confirmed the news.
Checked in with Team Indus regrading those GLXP rumors and they tell me they are "still very much part of the competition." No further comment tho on their contract with ISRO
2017 was a defining year for TeamIndus and as we move into the New Year, we want to thank you for walking hand in hand with us. Ours is a long journey, both in form and spirit. It comes with a unique set of challenges and obstacles but we are determined to stay on the path and remain focused on the goal. Over the last few weeks, we’ve been given to understand that launching from India is unviable. Our recent interactions with Antrix has indicated that they are not going forward with us for the launch. While that means we will not meet the current GLXP timeline of Mar 31, 2018, we intend to continue our endeavor to land a privately funded spacecraft on the Moon. We have made initial contact with launch providers overseas and will have a clearer picture of the alternatives by the end of this month.We believe our new challenge has a silver lining – it untethers us, enabling us to push forward with renewed vigor and increased flexibility. It also strengthens our aspiration to continue going moonwards.While we never publicly launched our engagement campaign, we are delighted to have had over 9000 people contributing Rs.500 to be a part of our journey and send their names to the Moon. We thank you for being one of them. As our launch will be delayed, we would like to offer you the opportunity to get a refund for the money we received from you. Do confirm whether your payment card/bank account you made the payment from, continues to be your active one and if you would like the refund transferred to your account. We look forward to hearing from you within 3 days of the receipt of this mail if there is any change in the account/card number, after which we will be refunding the money to that account. We would love to engage with you again for the next stage of our journey and will continue to be in touch with you. Please feel free to reach out to us with any questions or thoughts you may have. Wishing you an amazing 2018!-TeamIndus
It is, so they are going on alone if they can find the money. So are several other teams. Moon Express, Astrobotic, PTScientists, probably SpaceIL. It will be GLXP without the G or the XP.
The GLXP was still a success, it mission was to create commercial lunar cargo lander companies. We now have 6 lander/rover companies, some very well funded.
Quote from: TrevorMonty on 01/23/2018 04:48 pmThe GLXP was still a success, it mission was to create commercial lunar cargo lander companies. We now have 6 lander/rover companies, some very well funded. How many will we have a year from now? The Ansari x-prize companies generally snuffed it immediately.
The Google Lunar X Prize competition, which has spent the past decade dangling a $20 million prize for the first privately financed venture to make it to the moon, came to a quiet end on Tuesday. Not with the ka-boom of a rocket launch or a winner beaming photos back from the lunar surface, but with a tweet and a statement.The organizers at the X Prize Foundation conceded that none of the five remaining entrants have a chance of getting off the ground by the deadline at the end of March.