Four new
teams have joined a $30 million race to land a privately built rover on the
moon and beam images back to Earth, the contest's organizers announced
Wednesday.
The new
contestants make for a total of 14 registered teams from around the world competing
for the Google
Lunar X Prize offered by the Santa Monica, Calif.-based X Prize Foundation.
"I'm
delighted that we have four new teams joining the competition," said Peter
Diamandis, the X Prize Foundation's chairman and CEO.
Announced last
September, the Google Lunar X Prize is a cash-prize contest that offers a $20
million grand prize to the team that successfully soft lands a privately funded
spacecraft on the moon, moves it about on the lunar surface for just under a
third of a mile (500 meters), and transmits video, images, and data back to
Earth by December 2012. A $5 million Second Prize and an additional $5 million
in bonus prizes are also up for grabs.
"Our
fourteen teams are not only geographically diverse, but have an astounding
diversity of ideas and plans," Diamandis said. "We are thrilled to announce the
first Asian X Prize team, the first mystery team for the Google Lunar X Prize,
and the first X Prize team from a Historically Black Colleges and Universities
partnership."
A team summit
held Wednesday at the International Space University in Strasbourg, France, revealed some details about each of the new teams except the mystery team. Google Lunar X Prize
teams have the option of officially registering but remaining anonymous until
July 20, 2009.
The four
new teams include:
- Advaeros: Team Advaeros is led by Hanidy
Yusof, founder of the Malaysian company Advanced Aerospace Industries, a
small Research and Development company dealing with smart systems for
navigation, robotic application, aeronautical and space related
activities. The team plans to design its own launch vehicle, focusing part
of its effort on craft design, and the rest on launch vehicle design.
- JURBAN The Juxtopia Urban Robotics
Brilliant Application National (JURBAN) challenge is a program developed
by the Juxtopia Group, a non-profit research organization. The JURBAN
Challenge Program trains underserved and disadvantaged students to build
autonomous service robotic systems that have significant impact in their
community. The JURBAN team will be made up of professional and student
engineers and be led by Juxtopia founder Jayfus Doswell.
- STELLAR: Based in North Carolina and
led by Dick Dell, Team STELLAR includes team members from Insight
Technologies, the Advanced Vehicle Research Center and North Carolina State University. The team plans to highlight educational outreach, and includes
volunteers from two schools that participate in the FIRST Robotics
competition, which is a national high school competition based in the
United States.
- Mystery
Team: This
team has opted to keep its identity and details secret until the July 2009
deadline, X Prize officials said.
The first
official Lunar X Prize team signed
up just a few months after the competition announcement. The X PRIZE
Foundation then unveiled
nine more teams in February 2008. If the full $20 million grand prize is
not won by Dec. 31, 2012, the purse will drop to $15 million through 2014, X
Prize officials said.
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