Contenders Named In Private Race To The Moon

10 Teams Registered For $30 Million Google Lunar X Prize
Aero-News.net

The X Prize Foundation and Google, Inc. announced Thursday the first
10 teams to register for the Google Lunar X Prize, a robotic race to
the Moon to win $30 million in Prizes. This international group of
teams will compete to land a privately funded robotic craft on the
Moon that is capable of roaming the lunar surface for at least 500
meters and sending video, images and data back to the Earth.

Dr. Peter H. Diamandis, Chairman and CEO of the X Prize Foundation,
announced the teams at Google Headquarters in Mountain View, CA.

"I'm very pleased to welcome our first 10 fully registered teams to
the Google Lunar X Prize," Diamandis said. "Only six months after the
announcement of this competition, the response has been incredible --
we've received over 567 expressions of interest from 53 nations. By
comparison, at the six-month point of the Ansari X Prize we had only
two teams registered. I think we're going to see an exciting and very
competitive race to the Moon, highlighted by some very creative
designs unlike anything we've seen come out of the government space
programs."

"Many of these teams represent some of the most creative and
entrepreneurial minds in space exploration today," he added. "I wish
them all the very best of luck. I can't wait to join with Google in
paying the winner."

"We are excited that 10 teams from around the world have taken up the
challenge of the Google Lunar X Prize," said Megan Smith, Google's
Vice President for New Business Development. "We look forward to the
exciting achievements and scientific advancements that will result
from the efforts of these teams as they participate in the next great
space race."

The 10 teams a

Aeronautics and Cosmonautics Romanian Association (ARCA): Based in
Valcea, Romania and led by Dumitru Popescu, ARCA was also a contender
in the Ansari X Prize. Two of ARCA's most innovative projects to date
have been the Demonstrator 2B rocket and Stabilo, a two-stage manned
suborbital air-launched vehicle. The craft they plan to enter in the
Google Lunar X Prize will be called the "European Lunar Explorer."

Astrobotic: Team Astrobotic, led by Dr. William "Red" Whittaker, was
formed to coordinate the efforts of Carnegie Mellon University,
Raytheon Company and additional institutions. One of Carnegie Mellon's
specialties is autonomous navigation through stereo vision and other
technologies. This enables Carnegie Mellon's robots to automatically
avoid obstacles and select their own route across unmapped terrain.
Astrobotic will compete for the Prize using their "Artemis Lander" and
"Red Rover." Chandah: Chandah, meaning "Moon" in Sanskrit, was founded
by Adil Jafry, an energy industry entrepreneur. He is now chairman and
CEO of Tara, the largest independent retail electricity provider in
Texas. Jafry's goal is to catalyze commercialization of space, and
bring advances in space travel, tourism, sciences, and technology to
the general public at large. Team Chandah's spacecraft will be named
"Shehrezade."

FREDNET: Headed by Fred J. Bourgeois III, this multi-national team is
comprised of systems, software, and hardware developers who serve as
the leaders and overall coordinators of an international group of Open
Source developers, engineers, and scientists. Their goal is to bring
the same successful approach used in developing major software systems
(such as the Internet, and Linux) to bear on the problems associated
with Space Exploration and Research.

LunaTrex: Led by Pete Bitar, LunaTrex is comprised of several
individuals, companies, and universities from all over the United
States, some of whom were also competitors for the Ansari X Prize.
Each team member brings their own history to the mix: rocket science,
high-altitude near-space R&D, defense directed-energy technology,
aviation design and development, robotics, trajectories, and non-
conventional propulsion expertise. The name of their competing craft
will be "Tumbleweed."

Micro-Space: Helmed by Richard Speck and based in Colorado, Micro-
Space, Inc. has a 31-year history of producing world class, high tech
products. Since focusing on the development of spaceflight systems,
they have flown 17 innovative, bipropellant liquid fuel rockets, three
near-hover rockets with vectored thrust guidance, scores of flights
with telemetry and radio tracking, and several innovative life support
systems. Micro-Space has been a competitor in the Ansari X Prize as
well as the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge. Their "Human
Lunar Lander" will compete for Google Lunar X Prize.

Odyssey Moon: The first team to register for the competition, Odyssey
Moon is a private commercial lunar enterprise headquartered in the
Isle of Man and founded by Dr. Robert Richards. Odyssey Moon's
business plans are actively in development for a series of missions to
the Moon during the International Lunar Decade in support of science,
exploration and commerce. Their Google Lunar X Prize craft is titled
"MoonOne (M-1)."

Quantum3: A US-based team, Quantum3 is led by Paul Carliner, a senior
executive in the aerospace industry. They propose to field a small
spacecraft launched from an East Coast range using launch-coast-burn
trajectory for a propulsive soft landing on the surface of the Moon at
the Sea of Tranquility. Quantum3 is taking a partnership approach to
the mission, utilizing the unique capabilities of the private sector
and academic communities. Their craft will be called "Moondancer."

Southern California Selene Group: According to team leader Harold
Rosen, the approach taken by the Santa Monica Selene Group can be
succinctly summarized as "an elegantly simple design that is
relatively inexpensive to implement." The architecture for their
"Spirit of Southern California" spacecraft will combine the control
and communication systems used in some of the earliest communications
satellites with the latest in electronic and sensor technology.

Team Italia: Based in Italy and led by Prof. Amalia Ercoli-Finzi, Team
Italia is a collaboration between several universities. The team is
currently running a prototype of its system at Politecnico di Milano.
The architecture of the robotic system is under study: a single big
rover or a colony of many robots, light and mobile, with many legs and
wheels, able to be compacted in the lander and distributed quickly on
the Moon's surface with cameras and sensory support.

The X Prize Foundation has also announced that Space Florida will be a
new preferred partner and the first preferred launch site for the $30
million Google Lunar X Prize competition. Each preferred partner
offers additional Prizes or strategic services at a discounted rate to
all competition teams. As the first preferred launch site, Space
Florida will award an additional prize of $2 million to the Grand
Prize winner of the Google Lunar X Prize competition, provided the
winner launched the winning flight from the State of Florida and upon
confirmation that the winner has complied with all competition rules.

Space Florida was created by the Florida Legislature to sustain
Florida's position as the global leader in space exploration and
commerce, and is the principal organization charged with promoting and
developing Florida's aerospace industry.

As ANN has reported, 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 31, 2012; thereafter it
will drop to $15 million until December 31, 2014 at which point the
competition will be terminated unless extended by Google and the X
Prize Foundation.