First Team Signs Lunar Lander Launch Contract in Lunar X Prize Competition

It has taken a while, but after eight years it is finally here: the first team in the running for the Google Lunar X Prize has signed a contract to put its own spacecraft on the moon. That will happen in 2017.

The team that was the first to announce that it will finally go to the moon is the Israeli team. With this, Israel claims to be the fourth country to put a spacecraft on the moon, after previous missions by the United States, China and the former Soviet Union. However, SpaceIL is not a government team, but a collaboration of private companies.

SpaceIL plans to send its spacecraft with the SpaceX Falcon 9 in the second half of 2017. Officially, the deadline ends in 2017, but Google has changed the terms of the race several times. Announcing more than eight years ago, the sponsor said the competition would end in 2014, but the winner had until 2012 to claim the prize. The fact that the competition has been going on for longer indicates that making your own spacecraft is not a dream come true. The prize pool is there: the winner will receive 20 million dollars.

The aim of the competition is not only to make a lunar lander, it must also perform various tasks. For example, the team’s lunar lander must not only reach the celestial body, but also travel 400 meters once it arrives. Their spacecraft will also have to shoot self-portraits and panoramic images and send roughly real-time video back to Earth. There are fifteen candidates in the Lunar X Prize and they have until the end of 2016 to sign a contract for a launch.

Fifteen teams are still in the race to reach the moon