In a bid to successfully place a spacecraft on Moon’s surface and to win $30 million Google lunar prize, Moon Express, one of the five finalists has raised $20 million for its first moon trip. Moon Express will be first U.S. spacecraft that will make its launching on moon’s surface after 1972.
In a media interview, the co-founder and chairman of Moon Express, Naveen Jain told that the team has raised a $20 million funding and by adding this, the total fundraising has now reached to $45 million from all investors. Though launching date has not been finalized yet, the company is has kept November or December of 2017 as target months for launching the spacecraft from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Naveen also told that the team has been able to implement state of art technology which enabled the team to launch a flight to the moon with a budget of $7 million which costs $200 million usually. This is what the aim of Google Lunar Prize; to fabricate “low cost” unmanned space mission.
Moon Express will make its journey through the spacecraft the MX-1E under the guidance of Rocket Lab of USA. Soon after leaving the surface of the earth, MX-1E will get detach from the mother spacecraft and will march alone for a four-day journey towards the moon.
Many scientific and commercial payloads will also be carried away by the spacecraft. Rocket Lab has promised to provide 5 rockets to for each unmanned mission organized by Moon Express. Jain also told about the vision of this mission which also includes commercial selling of engagement rings made from the rocks of a moon to harvesting of ice over there as engine fuel.
Google lunar Prize has announced $20 million grand prizes for the first team that successfully completes the mission and bonus $5 million for completing additional optional tasks on the surface of the moon.
Apart from Moon Express, the other five entitled teams for the competition are - Israel’s SpaceIL, an international team called Synergy Moon, India’s Bengaluru-based firm Team Indus, and Japan’s Hakuto. SpaceIL. The Lunar probes of all the five teams will take wings on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
As per the earlier instruction, the competitor companies needed to conduct some specific activities on the surface of Moon, which includes, making their space probes take a trip of the Moon around1,640 feet (500 meters) and transmit high-definition video, by the end of the current year. Initially, 33 teams have applied for the contest, however, only five teams have a successfully paved path towards the final round of Google Lunar XPrize.
Recently, to make people familiarize more with the Lunar XPrize competition, Google’s parental company, Alphabet has released a documentary series, detailing about the missions, vision, and intentions behind the competition.
In a media interview, the co-founder and chairman of Moon Express, Naveen Jain told that the team has raised a $20 million funding and by adding this, the total fundraising has now reached to $45 million from all investors. Though launching date has not been finalized yet, the company is has kept November or December of 2017 as target months for launching the spacecraft from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Naveen also told that the team has been able to implement state of art technology which enabled the team to launch a flight to the moon with a budget of $7 million which costs $200 million usually. This is what the aim of Google Lunar Prize; to fabricate “low cost” unmanned space mission.
Moon Express will make its journey through the spacecraft the MX-1E under the guidance of Rocket Lab of USA. Soon after leaving the surface of the earth, MX-1E will get detach from the mother spacecraft and will march alone for a four-day journey towards the moon.
Many scientific and commercial payloads will also be carried away by the spacecraft. Rocket Lab has promised to provide 5 rockets to for each unmanned mission organized by Moon Express. Jain also told about the vision of this mission which also includes commercial selling of engagement rings made from the rocks of a moon to harvesting of ice over there as engine fuel.
Google lunar Prize has announced $20 million grand prizes for the first team that successfully completes the mission and bonus $5 million for completing additional optional tasks on the surface of the moon.
Apart from Moon Express, the other five entitled teams for the competition are - Israel’s SpaceIL, an international team called Synergy Moon, India’s Bengaluru-based firm Team Indus, and Japan’s Hakuto. SpaceIL. The Lunar probes of all the five teams will take wings on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
As per the earlier instruction, the competitor companies needed to conduct some specific activities on the surface of Moon, which includes, making their space probes take a trip of the Moon around1,640 feet (500 meters) and transmit high-definition video, by the end of the current year. Initially, 33 teams have applied for the contest, however, only five teams have a successfully paved path towards the final round of Google Lunar XPrize.
Recently, to make people familiarize more with the Lunar XPrize competition, Google’s parental company, Alphabet has released a documentary series, detailing about the missions, vision, and intentions behind the competition.