Lunar X-Prize

[savuporo]

Ten teams now entered:
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/02/the-first-10-te.html
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/080221-lunar-xprize-florida.html

The thread probably doesnt match with "commercial launchers" but its private undertaking, and there is no other suitable forum category.

Wired article has the appropriate headline, the ten teams are an "Odd lot", but thats to be expected.

[simonbp]

I'd be curious about the CMU/UofA team; CMU certainly knows how to build robots, but they have a bad tendency of being too big and complex (exactly what won't work for this project)...

Simon

[grakenverb]

I'm curious as to what launch vehicle would be used.

[savuporo]

Are you familiar with the CMU IceBreaker lunar rover design ? It was a mission concept taken quite far along, i believe they had a plan to do the launch in cooperation with LunaCorp at some time.
Anyway, they had the design concept materials up on the web at some time, looked pretty good to me.
Heres the old preliminary design study webpage:
http://www.ri.cmu.edu/pubs/pub_447.html

It was taken quite a bit further than that.

[hyper_snyper]

grakenverb - 24/2/2008  9:23 AM

I'm curious as to what launch vehicle would be used.

I think Musk has offered the Falcon 1 at a reduced price.  Anybody know how much that can push towards the moon?

[hop]

Here's the thread from when the prize was announced: http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=9818&start=1

This includes a lot of speculation on what sort of mission you could do on what LV.

edit: And a lot of naysaying by yours truly :laugh:

[docmordrid]

hyper_snyper - 24/2/2008  12:34 PM

grakenverb - 24/2/2008  9:23 AM

I'm curious as to what launch vehicle would be used.

I think Musk has offered the Falcon 1 at a reduced price.  Anybody know how much that can push towards the moon?

Musk offered both the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 at a 10% markdown.

[iamlucky13]

grakenverb - 24/2/2008  6:23 AM

I'm curious as to what launch vehicle would be used.

Russian Dnepr might be a good candidate. Decent payload and price, and it exists today.

I can't imagine a Falcon 1 would be able to get a meaningful payload to the moon. Same for Orbital Sciences' existing launchers. Even if a Falcon 9 or Taurus II is successfully operating by then, that's no guarantee a launcher will be available between COTS and other customers.

Unless someone is really convinced they're showing off a very marketable technology, don't count on a Delta II being feasible either. That would cost about 3 times the maximum possible award for a single launch, not counting the lander and rover.

Maybe Zenit is a possibility, too?

Piggybacking on something larger could potentially be an option, but if you're a commercial satellite operator putting a $100 million plus payload into orbit, would you want an experimental lander sharing a rocket with you?

Google co-founder Sergey Brin said he was amazed that so many competitors had signed up so soon after the prize's announcement.

"I was floored," Brin told the team members and reporters who attended the press conference. "We had no such expectation."

Hehe...maybe he's starting to worry he might actually have to pay out the prize. Personally, I've had strong doubts from the beginning anyone can raise the capital to do it.

[hop]

iamlucky13 - 25/2/2008  3:54 PM
Russian Dnepr might be a good candidate. Decent payload and price, and it exists today.

Indias PSLV is also a reasonable candidate.

Even if a Falcon 9 or Taurus II is successfully operating by then, that's no guarantee a launcher will be available between COTS and other customers.

They are likely to cost significantly more than the first place prize for launch alone. You might get a deal on a development flight, if no big customers are willing to take the risk. Angara might also end up in this category if it actually comes online in the next few years.

Piggybacking on something larger could potentially be an option, but if you're a commercial satellite operator putting a $100 million plus payload into orbit, would you want an experimental lander sharing a rocket with you?

Experimental (including student built, HAMSAT etc) secondary payloads do fly, but are relatively rare on GEOCOM flights. AFAIK this has more to do with the fact that they try very hard to use the full capacity of the LV, since station keeping fuel is one of their major lifespan limits.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin said he was amazed that so many competitors had signed up so soon after the prize's announcement.

"I was floored," Brin told the team members and reporters who attended the press conference. "We had no such expectation."

Hehe...maybe he's starting to worry he might actually have to pay out the prize. Personally, I've had strong doubts from the beginning anyone can raise the capital to do it.

If I were him, I wouldn't be worrying yet, signing up a team is a lot easier than getting funding.

[savuporo]

hop - 25/2/2008  3:58 PM
If I were him, I wouldn't be worrying yet, signing up a team is a lot easier than getting funding.

At least this time there apparently was some token registration sum, on the order of $1000 or so, to leave complete bozos behind the door. It did did not do its job completely though ..

[rpspeck]

savuporo - 26/2/2008  12:09 AM

hop - 25/2/2008  3:58 PM
If I were him, I wouldn't be worrying yet, signing up a team is a lot easier than getting funding.

At least this time there apparently was some token registration sum, on the order of $1000 or so, to leave complete bozos behind the door. It did did not do its job completely though ..

The original X Prize had a $1000 entry fee.  The Google Lunar X Prize raised the entry fee to $10,000 initially - for full registration (and several times that for late entries).
   
Keep in mind that the Google Lunar X Prize purse is only about 50% above the Annual cost of supporting one “IndyCar” team.  33 run in each modern race.  How much visibility do “average” teams (like the Fed X car) really get?  Google obviously thinks they will get more cumulative attention with this prize effort than they would get funding an auto racing team  with that money, and I am certain they will!  How many other sponsors will notice that the payoff and identification as a “technology leader” is better in these efforts than in traditional sponsored sports?  Which sponsors will prefer an online audience to “traditional” couch potatoes?

Yes, “traditional” sports have a “proven” track record, but that record includes declining viewership (as with the recent “Academy Awards”).  Not every sponsor really wants to make do with “same old, same old” events and TV viewers!    

[coach]

"I can't imagine a Falcon 1 would be able to get a meaningful payload to the moon. Same for Orbital Sciences' existing launchers."


The Falcon 1 seems underweight, would the F9 be too much rocket for the price?  It seems ironic that SpaceX cancelled the Falcon 5 just before a potential use could have been found for it.


Coach

[Lampyridae]

Two or more teams could always play nice and split the price of a rocket ride. Be an exciting competition, then - some rover-bashing a la Robot Wars would be fun (not being serious, of course). But two or three rovers competing against each other simultaneously would make for good TV.

Seriously, though, Dnepr can put 550kg on a TLI with a hypergolic 4th stage. Assuming that half of that is a crasher deceleration stagel, then about 200kg can be soft-landed. That's a pretty decent rover mass. But a lot of these proposals looks like they might mass less than 50kg. A plain vanilla Falcon 1 or Pegasus can orbit 450kg could soft-land maybe 20-50kg with an 320s EDS and crasher stage.They're not carrying scientific equipment (that I know of) other than cameras. University Cubesats regularly hitch rides on Dneprs and they mass only 1 kg.

[iamlucky13]

hop - 25/2/2008  5:58 PM

They are likely to cost significantly more than the first place prize for launch alone. You might get a deal on a development flight, if no big customers are willing to take the risk. Angara might also end up in this category if it actually comes online in the next few years.

I think even a Dnepr, which I would suspect to be the best option, costs somewhere around $20 million to launch. I'm sure no one is going to make a profit off of this unless they either figure out either a marketable technology or piggyback.

Experimental (including student built, HAMSAT etc) secondary payloads do fly, but are relatively rare on GEOCOM flights. AFAIK this has more to do with the fact that they try very hard to use the full capacity of the LV, since station keeping fuel is one of their major lifespan limits.

Good point about the fuel mass.

I know a lot student satellites etc. fly as secondary payloads, but from what I've seen, these mostly use either off-the-shelf hypergolic or cold gas thrusters...if any at all. As a lunar lander would need relatively large and complicated set of thrusters, I think there's an additional risk there for anyone sharing with them. Even something really simple, like a fitting with a rubber seal that the x-prize team didn't realize gets brittle and cracks at low temps causing a hydrazine leak could make a mess of stuff, I should think.

[robertross]

Moon Express Enters the $30 Million Google Lunar X PRIZE Competition Featured

San Francisco, CA (October 26, 2010) – Today, Moon Express Inc, a privately funded lunar transportation and data services company, announced its official entry into the Google Lunar X PRIZE, a $30 million competition that challenges space professionals and engineers from across the globe to build and launch to the Moon a privately funded spacecraft capable of completing a series of exploration and transmission tasks. Team MoonEx, headquartered in San Francisco, CA, is among 24 teams from a dozen countries that are competing for their share of the $30 million prize purse.

Moon Express is also among six U.S. companies award a contract by NASA, the US civil space agency, as part of its $30M Innovative Lunar Demonstration Data (ILDD) program. The ILDD contract is for the purchase of technical data resulting from industry efforts to develop vehicle capabilities and demonstrate end-to-end robotic lunar landing missions. The data from these contracts will inform NASA in the development of future human and robotic lander vehicles and exploration systems.

"The Google Lunar X PRIZE and NASA's Innovative Lunar Demonstration Data program are very exciting competitions that represent the knee in the curve of opportunity for the commercial lunar industry," said Moon Express Team Leader, Dr. Robert (Bob) Richards.

“We are very excited to have Moon Express as one of our Google Lunar X PRIZE teams,” remarked William Pomerantz, Senior Director for Space Prizes at the X PRIZE Foundation. “With NASA already signed on as a customer, Moon Express enters the competition on great footing, and promises to be an extremely strong competitor.”

For more information about team Moon Express, please visit www.moonexpress.com.

About Moon Express
Moon Express, Inc. (MoonEx) is a privately funded lunar transportation and data services company. We have the experienced people, partners and financial resources to blaze a trail to the Moon and establish new avenues for commercial space activities beyond Earth orbit. Moon Express is planning a media conference to announce its recent NASA contract award, as well as other details of the company. Information on this announcement will be made in the next few weeks. If you'd like more information on this event, please send an email to  [email protected] e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
About the Google Lunar X PRIZE

The $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE is an unprecedented international competition that challenges and inspires engineers and entrepreneurs from around the world to develop low-cost methods of robotic space exploration. The $30 million prize purse is segmented into a $20 million Grand Prize, a $5 million Second Prize and $5 million in bonus prizes. To win the Grand Prize, a team must successfully soft land a privately funded spacecraft on the Moon, rove on the lunar surface for a minimum of 500 meters, and transmit a specific set of video, images and data back to the Earth. The Grand Prize is $20 million until December 31st 2012; thereafter it will drop to $15 million until December 31st 2014 at which point the competition will be terminated unless extended by Google and the X PRIZE Foundation. For more information about the Google Lunar X PRIZE, please visit www.googlelunarxprize.org.

About the X PRIZE Foundation
The X PRIZE Foundation is an educational nonprofit prize institute whose mission is to create radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity. In 2004, the Foundation captured world headlines when Burt Rutan, backed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, built and flew the world’s first private vehicle to space to win the $10 million Ansari X PRIZE. The Foundation has since launched the $10 million Archon X PRIZE for Genomics, the $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE, and the $10 million Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE. The Foundation is creating and conducting competitions in four prize groups: Exploration (Space and Oceans), Life Sciences, Energy & Environment, and Education & Global Development. The Foundation is widely recognized as the leader in fostering innovation through competition. For more information, please visit www.xprize.org.

[bolun]

Final Team Roster Announced!

Thu, 02/17/2011 - 11:01 — Google Lunar X PRIZE

PLAYA VISTA, CA (February 17, 2011) – Today, the X PRIZE Foundation announced the official roster of 29 registered teams competing for the $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE, an unprecedented competition to send a robot to the Moon that travels at least 500 meters and transmit 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.

http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/lunar/featured-article/final-team-roster-announced

The teams.

http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/lunar/teams