Staff Blog

November 20, 2012 - By Leo Camacho

SpaceIL and Odyssey Moon Announce Joint Teaming Agreement to Pursue $30 Million Google Lunar X PRIZE

Earlier today, the Google Lunar X PRIZE team Odyssey Moon announced that they have officially teamed up with team SpaceIL to work towards winning the competition together as one entity. SpaceIL will be taking the lead on this one, which means they will be assuming the representative role for both teams, as-well-as the first slot on our team page.

This means we are down to 24 teams competing towards the $30 million prize purse! Less is more, however, as teams have been joining, merging, acquiring and cooperating at an increasing rate, doubling up resources and accelerating the pace of this race towards the moon. Essentially, the Google Lunar X PRIZE has effectively created an active lunar economy of businesses not only selling goods to other teams and independent companies, but also purchasing themselves. Mergers and acquisitions are a sign of a blossoming enterprise and these recent events represent the start of the commercial landscape for lunar exploration.

November 20, 2012 - By Nick Azer

Lunar Roundup: Mass Media

The week's best highlights! The journal Nature featured Astrobotic's cave plans; Robin Williams talked about the competition on David Letterman; Penn State Lunar Lion sat down for their awesome team summit interview; Space.com compared the competition to the gold rush; and Astrobotic talked about skylight exploration!

November 19, 2012 - By Anita Heward

Updates from Google Lunar X PRIZE in Europe

Google Lunar X PRIZE is a truly international competition, with teams headquartered in four continents. Eight of the teams - about a third of those now participating - are either based in Europe or have a significant contribution from European partners. While many of these teams have been very successful in engaging with the media and outreach communities at a national level, there’s still a sense at a wider level that Europe hasn’t yet woken up to the major contribution it’s making to this prize. Over the past few months, Google Lunar X PRIZE has been actively flagging up its European credentials and building links with Europe’s community of lunar scientists, its media, museums and science centres, as well as the European Space Agency (ESA).

November 15, 2012 - By Leo Camacho

Team Interview- Penn State Lunar Lions

This week's team interview is with Michael V. Paul of the Pennsylvania State University Lunar Lions team. It seems like PSU has some great intentions for establishing a solid future in commercial space through education. A well thought-out plan as well as a well put-together team lead by tried and tested leaders, with a heritage in the space industry, could be just the thing to get our youth interested in space by making it more accessible to students. Hopefully their well-implemented plan reaches beyond the Google Lunar X PRIZE long after the competition is over and continues to inspire. They seem confident that they can take it all the way. What do you think?

November 13, 2012 - By Nick Azer

Lunar Roundup: Testing Out the Tech Ideas

This week's best highlights! Penn State Lunar Lion created a copter for testing, while Astrobotic looked at lunar excavation; Team Indus looked at locomotion; Team Puli planned to go to Mars (via Morocco); and Italia posted a cool research roundup.

November 6, 2012 - By Nick Azer

Lunar Roundup: Rocket Engines and a Rover Parade

The week's top five highlights! Plus some great honorable mentions. Our Team Summit video showed a bunch of designs; Synergy Moon shared a rocket engine test; Angelicum posted a bunch of new concepts; the Rocket City Space Pioneers battled some giant Moon pumpkins; and Omega Envoy shared their newest design!

November 5, 2012 - By Nathan Wong

Benefits of Going Back to the Moon

Benefits of Going Back to the Moon

This article is part three in a five part series about going back to the Moon with the Google Lunar X PRIZE by Nathan Wong.

Getting to the Moon and having a spacecraft function properly once there are challenging tasks that 25 teams from around the world are trying to complete. But what does the Moon give us in return? What makes going back to the Moon worthwhile and exciting?Well if you polled the GLXP teams and the lunar science community you would get many varied answers. I am going to just touch on a few of the important benefits that the Moon can provide for us: Science, Power, Water, Analogue Demonstration, and Launch Port Capability.

November 1, 2012 - By Leo Camacho

Google Lunar X PRIZE Team Summit 2012 Video

Finally, the much anticipated Google Lunar X PRIZE 2012 team summit video is up for your viewing pleasure!

October 30, 2012 - By Nick Azer

Lunar Roundup: International

This week's top five highlights! A very international week, with Puli testing their rover outside Budapest, a Japanese article covering new White Label Space plans, an Austrian article revealing details of SpaceIL, and a Pittsburgh, USA double-feature as Penn State Lunar Lion and Astrobotic both uploaded great videos.

October 25, 2012 - By Nathan Wong

Rocket City Space Pioneers Team Interview

An interview with Google Lunar X PRIZE team Rocket City Space Pioneers, based in the USA. Team Leader, Tim Pickens discuses getting people interested in their team and their collaboration with universities and high schools.