Sources said TeamIndus was unable to mobilise the funds or technological resources to put the mission together. It was planning to build India's first privately funded spacecraft, which would have been able to achieve a soft-landing on moon, piggybacking on Indian space agency ISRO's PSLV rocket.
I doubt anyone is going to make it to the moon by March 2018.It is probably GLXP call, but if they make it March 2019, this might help. Of course, we might say the same thing in a year's time.Except for SpaceIL updates and now team indus pullout, I'm not sure what are the other teams status.I know astrobotic is out but still working on something? The same for PT scientists...
Moon Express would seem to me to be the only one still capable of a flight around the time of the deadline. More likely they will be delayed beyond that, but I would still say the only one likely to fly this year.
Quote from: Phil Stooke on 01/10/2018 02:41 pmMoon Express would seem to me to be the only one still capable of a flight around the time of the deadline. More likely they will be delayed beyond that, but I would still say the only one likely to fly this year.Did they show anything more substantial than a model spacecraft?
Kinda wish GLXP would die so we can see if there's any deep pockets willing to pick up the pieces.
Two things missing from GLXP - structuring the deadline, and assessing reasonable launch contracts. Too much upfront time to get to an advanced state (e.g. a credible mission), too little time to finance/launch such. Launch contracts should only have been acceptable if said LV had even made it to any kind of orbit a once, and that the contract/deadline, relative to the provider/means, could actually make it to the pad before expiration (including stand-downs/other issues).If you were going to do a "GLXP 2", you'd want to clear away the "launch obstacle" better.
2017 has been a defining year for TeamIndus and as we move into the New Year, we want to thank you all for the support till date.Since the beginning, we’ve tried to make this an open and accessible mission. Stay tuned as we share what the future holds for us on 25th Jan.
So if there is "no there, there" (flight-ready lander hardware) from Bob Richards and Moon Express, then the recent successful orbital launch of the first Electron LV from Rocket Lab would seem to make no difference.I thought I saw that Moon Express was still pushing that Electron launch by 31st March 2018. No?Anyone have insight into that?
First, a little disclosure, for anyone who doesn't already know: I was the main author of the Google Lunar XPRIZE rules, and I ran or was part of the team running the prize from its inception through early 2011. So, obviously I've got both knowledge and bias on this topic!
I'll be sad if it does indeed wind down in the next few months without a winner, but mainly I'll be pleased that (I suspect) multiple teams will live through that ending and continue on as serious, meaningful efforts. Don't get me wrong, not awarding a prize will be a bummer to me personally, but despite what the heart feels, the brain knows that what comes next is actually what matters most.
The fact that teams are still in it for the moment despite the three pillars upon the prize was built (a flush venture capital market, cheap access to space in the form of Dnepr and Falcon 1, and massive lunar programs from basically every government space agency) all being knocked down within a year or so of the prize being created is truly astounding to me. The fact that more than 3x the target number of teams registered to compete, and that some of those teams were as talented as they were, still boggles my mind.
There are still some untold stories that both thrill and devastate me. The most tantalizing/frustrating of which is that there was an individual investor who was prepared to write a >$100M check to fund a single team all the way back in 2008, but eventually was so put off by the fact that the university affiliated with the team was going to take out such a large amount of overhead that the deal never closed, and the team never even registered. The fact that the prize got such a deal to the point where it was literally one phone call away from happening tells me it was probably worth doing even if just for that.
Some other thoughts, in response to these:Quote from: Space Ghost 1962 on 01/10/2018 11:32 pmTwo things missing from GLXP - structuring the deadline, and assessing reasonable launch contracts. Too much upfront time to get to an advanced state (e.g. a credible mission), too little time to finance/launch such. Launch contracts should only have been acceptable if said LV had even made it to any kind of orbit a once, and that the contract/deadline, relative to the provider/means, could actually make it to the pad before expiration (including stand-downs/other issues).If you were going to do a "GLXP 2", you'd want to clear away the "launch obstacle" better.I'm not entirely sure I understand what you mean with the first part of this quote. The GLXP is intentionally pretty unstructured on purpose. The thought is that if, let's say, Blue Origin, Skunk Works, and Masten each tried to win the prize, they'd take three very different paths and proceed along three very different timelines. We very much want to be open to each path, because I for one think any of the three of those have the capability to win the prize and to persist afterwards.
A similar type of theory applies to the second point. When I was in charge of the GLXP, we kept all of the initial hurdles as low as possible. To register a team, you basically had to be able to raise $10,000 and you couldn't be relying on alien technology or artificial gravity. This means that we admitted teams about whom we were incredibly skeptical. But our guiding thought was that if prize runners set high hurdles at the beginning or in the middle of prize competitions, rather than just at the end, we likely would never have had a John Harrison or a Charles Lindbergh in those competitions. To bring that forward to today, if we applied those kinds of tests, I probably wouldn't have kept TrueZer0 or Unreasonable Rocket in the Lunar Lander Challenge--a lot of very smart people were very wrong about both of those groups, and they continued being wrong about them basically right up until the moment they had rocket taking off under the watchful eyes of our awesome judges.
Lastly, in regards to removing the launch obstacle, this is a very sensible solution. It's actually something we looked at when I was still at XPRIZE. We internally considered lowering the prize purse a bit, but then going out and procuring a ride on a Falcon 9. It was an intriguing idea, but ultimately we decided against it for several reasons.
* It would put us in the position of picking who got a spot on the rocket. Certainly a fairly likely scenario is that only a few teams would have anything resembling flight hardware, but what if more teams want spots than there is room on the rocket? Is XPF really a good org to pick who gets the spots and who doesn't? Would we leave a future Lindbergh on the ground because we filled up the rocket with Fonck, Nungesser, and Byrd?
* How do you divvy up the rocket into discrete spots? Presumably you carve up the total TLI capacity of a rocket into a certain number of equal mass, equal volume spots. But what if teams think the best design is a little bigger than that? Or what if it's actually much much smaller than that? How early do you call your shot, and how? Can you set up some kind of auction system? How?
* For that matter, is TLI the right 'place' to send the rocket? Some teams innovated about their cruise stage--are we basically eliminating that part of the competition? Should we? Or maybe we should go further, and go all the way to lunar orbit insertion, or something else...
* We're putting all of our eggs in one basket. What if the launch fails? Or the fleet is grounded?
* How do you pick a launch vehicle without favoring some teams over the others? If we pick the Falcon 9, does the team based in China really have a chance? Do all teams based in the US have an advantage over everyone else? Similarly, if we pick the PSLV, are we adding a burden to our US teams?
* Let's say we solve all of the above, pick a vehicle, pick a selection method. Then, on final integration day, only one team shows up. Do we delay the launch? Does we really have the guts to launch a rocket that is 75% empty (presumably not literally empty, but empty of prize competitors? Is that really even a good thing to do?
I thought, and continue to think, that this is a fascinating idea. And I bet you could make a cool competition out of it. It's just not clear to me that it would actually be a better competition than what the GLXP was. If I could send a message back in time to the days when we were designing the GLXP, I'd probably start with other tips.