The Google Lunar X PRIZE

Odyssey Moon was the first official team to register for the $30M Google Lunar X PRIZE competition. The company made its first public debut on December 6th, 2007, at the Space Investment Summit in San Jose, California, unveiling its plans to make history with the first private robotic mission to the surface of the Moon and to win the Google Lunar X PRIZE.

The Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP) is a robotic race to the Moon by private teams to win a remarkable $30 million prize purse managed by the X PRIZE Foundation and funded by Google. Announced on September 13, 2007, the GLXP challenges private companies from around the world to land a privately funded robotic rover on the Moon that is capable of completing several mission objectives, including travelling at least 500 meters and sending video, images and data back to the Earth.

The Google Lunar X PRIZE is an unprecedented international competition that is challenging and inspiring engineers and entrepreneurs from around the world to develop low-cost methods of robotic space exploration. The X PRIZE Foundation, best known for the $10 million Ansari X PRIZE for private suborbital spaceflight, is an educational nonprofit prize organization whose goal is to bring about radical breakthroughs to solve some of the greatest challenges facing the world today.

 

 

 


The Prize Purse:

  • 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, travel a minimum of 500 meters, and transmit a specific set of video, images and data back to the Earth.
  • Bonus prizes will be won by successfully completing additional mission tasks such as roving longer distances (> 5,000 meters), imaging man made artifacts (e.g. Apollo hardware), discovering water ice, and/or surviving through a frigid lunar night (approximately 14.5 Earth days).
Odyssey Moon has embraced this challenge into the objective of its inaugural “M-1” lunar mission, adapting its unique “Odyssey” robotic lander to meet the GLXP requirements while delivering other scientific, exploration and commercial payloads to the surface of the Moon.

Since its unveiling in December 2007, the company has maintained its position as a leading contender for the Google Lunar X PRIZE while pursuing its business objectives of providing continuing lunar transportation services.

“We are proud to participate in the announcement of our first fully registered team. We hope the announcement will motivate and inspire even more teams to enter this race; a race that is now truly international.”
– Dr. Peter Diamandis, Chairman and CEO, X PRIZE Foundation