Ars Technica: Fly me to the moon: the Google Lunar X PRIZE, three years in

[The-Hammer]

Full Story

While most of us were sleeping off Christmas dinner or watching college football on TV, teams of engineers, students and aspiring rocketeers around the globe were working to become the first private enterprise to land a working rover on the Moon. The $30,000,000 Google Lunar X PRIZE, first announced a bit more than three years ago, officially closed to new registrations on December 31, 2010, with over 20 participating teams.

[HappyMartian]

Note scoreboard at: http://evadot.com/glxpscorecard/

See also:

GLXP News: Barcelona Moon Team Books Ride on Chinese Long March  By  Doug Messier  August 9, 2012
At: http://www.parabolicarc.com/2012/08/09/glxp-barcelona-moon-team-books-ride-on-chinese-long-march/
"BARCELONA, Spain (Barcelona Moon Team PR) – The Barcelona-based company, Galactic Suite, leading the industrial conglomerate, Barcelona Moon Team, announced it has signed a launch service contract for a Chinese rocket that will carry the Spanish robot to the Moon in June 2014 to attempt to win the $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE."

 

Edited.

[spectre9]

If this is won by a non-US team because of ITAR I'll laugh my head off.

Go Spain 

[HappyMartian]

DELIVERY OF LUNAR SURFACE PAYLOADS ON A COST-SHARED COMMERCIAL ROBOTIC EXPEDITION. By D. P. Gump
At: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/leag2011/pdf/2045.pdf
"Introduction: The agenda for robotic activity on the moon is sufficiently broad and the expense of mounting a commercial mission is now sufficiently affordable to close the business case for repeated private-sector expeditions that sell payload accommodations on a per-kg basis to all interested parties."

And, "Both lander and rover provide power and communications to payloads. Payloads on both have access to the regolith less than a half-meter away from their mounting locations."



Astrobotic Technology
At:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrobotic_Technology
"Astrobotic Technology is a privately held company that delivers space robotics and planetary missions. It was founded in 2008 by Carnegie Mellon professor Red Whittaker and his associates, with the goal of winning the Google Lunar X Prize.[1] The company is based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and has reserved a launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle for October 2015. As of August 2012, the company is partnered with Carnegie Mellon University, International Rectifier, Ansys, AGI, Alcoa, and Caterpillar."


Cheers!

[KelvinZero]

DELIVERY OF LUNAR SURFACE PAYLOADS ON A COST-SHARED COMMERCIAL ROBOTIC EXPEDITION. By D. P. Gump
At: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/leag2011/pdf/2045.pdf
"Introduction: The agenda for robotic activity on the moon is sufficiently broad and the expense of mounting a commercial mission is now sufficiently affordable to close the business case for repeated private-sector expeditions that sell payload accommodations on a per-kg basis to all interested parties."

Cool! One of the ideas I have been grinding on about till everyone was probably sick of it may actually happen.. Now if I can just convince them to call it COLTS..