CHANDAH (meaning “Moon” in Sanskrit) is a personal initiative born out of a chance reading of the Google Lunar X PRIZE press release about 6 weeks back. After reading the press release I got very excited and started my research in earnest– which ultimately led me to request this package. Subsequently, I have ordered about 25 books on the technical, commercial, and regulatory aspects of the space industry and various initiatives that are in the process of being unveiled by NASA and the private companies, both in US and abroad.
Personally, I am an energy industry entrepreneur, and have helped create several initiatives including my current company (TARA ENERGY) from scratch. TARA is a retail electricity provider in the state of Texas, and was born out of deregulation of the energy industry there. We started with a little over $0.5MM of angel money and turned it into a 20,000 customer, $130MM a year in revenues company. Today, TARA is the largest independent retail electricity provider in the state of Texas and my role at TARA is to integrate its various functions – Finance, Operations, Legal, Regulatory, Business & Corporate Development, and Marketing – to oversee the business model and governance. By title, I am TARA’s Chairman and CEO.
Like TARA (which means “Star” in Sanskrit), CHANDAH as an organization is something that will have to be built from scratch over many future years of hard and creative work. My vision is to build CHANDAH into a world class Space industry enterprise, one that can catalyze commercialization of Space, and bring the advances in space travel, tourism, sciences, and technology to the general public at large. I believe that every human being is curious about where life emerged from, if not on earth, and what the future of humanity is, once empowered and free to roam the universe. In this regard, someone who I hold in high regards once predicted a century back that people will go to drink “tea on the moon”. In launching CHANDAH, I hope that some day CHANDAH, its people, technologies, and initiatives will seek to spawn companies, technologies, and industries that will serve humanity and its needs.
Why did you decide to enter the Google Lunar X PRIZE?
The Google Lunar X PRIZE caught my imagination in January of 2008 just like deregulation of energy had done in January of 2002. It was challenging, required unlimited faith in oneself and his/her team, and a lot of ingenuity in solving the financial and technical challenges that would come ahead. Finally, the allure of undertaking the inordinately difficult task of flying a vehicle from Earth to Moon is itself an attraction – creating excitement that is hard to describe.
It was rare in 2002 for a no-name immigrant entrepreneur (myself) with very little to his name to launch an energy company with little more than a group of well-qualified young energy industry professionals who were driven by the desire and ambition to prove themselves against all odds. This team was required to singularly work hard and stay focused on their mission. In the end however, the TARA team prevailed against all odds – even as half the entrants in the deregulated energy industry in Texas disappeared.
I believe that the Google Lunar X PRIZE, much like the Orteig Prize, will create many future Charles Lindberghs. It will spawn new space technologies and products, and markets surrounding these products will ultimately emerge. In the end, Google Lunar X PRIZE entrants and competitors will have done more to evangelize and popularize opportunities in space for the masses than what could have been achieved by any one company, industry, or a government – and all this on the backs of private initiatives and private funding.
I am an entrepreneur and strongly believe in personal initiative, human ingenuity, hard work, and the abilities of individual private citizens with collective indomitable spirits to achieve the unthinkable. Particularly if lucky breakthroughs emerge as the initiative unfolds. As a student of Finance and Math, I have also been fascinated about how chance favors those who are bold, persistent, and have the staying power to continue tinkering (or rolling the dice) on the margins. Above all I enjoy the thrill of participating in probabilistic plays, where chances of success are limited and can be dynamically adjusted through preparation and innovation.
What do you think gives your team an advantage over your competitors?
The CHANDAH team is still just a vision. Today, the CHANDAH team is simply one entrepreneur with a background in understanding of how economic engines are created and can most efficiently function. A lot has to be pulled together between now and the launch of SHEHREZADE (our spacecraft) before it will be clear what core competence will give our team an edge over other competitors. My focus would be to build a craft that can efficiently and safely get to the moon and perform the roving, observations, and scientific experiments that will allow for us to build a cadre of integrated technologies and build a holistic understanding of space market economics. Whether ultimately CHANDAH morphs into a launch provider, a spacecraft manufacturer, a spaceport, or a services company focused on finer aspects of technology and marketing is still unclear. A solid team of passionate enthusiasts and professionals recruited from various space related areas will be “critical” for CHANDAH to become a viable entity in the future. Chief among them would be high caliber scientists, astrophysicists, aerospace engineers, and businessmen, who will all work together to identify the potential of turning the Google Lunar X PRIZE entry as a launching pad for something more than just our entry into the competition.
It is my belief that the knowledge base collected in the form of technologies, competencies, and understanding of the space economics will all serve as “real options” and be critical for the CHANDAH team to understand and evaluate as the essential work on Google Lunar X PRIZE commences and progresses. Finally, I hope that creating a quality, innovative, and technologically safe spacecraft that can perform the dictates of the X PRIZE, and additionally building competencies to enable and use this as raw materials for other space-related and human endeavors will provide a unique distinction for CHANDAH.
Describe in general terms your technical plans for winning the prize
I hope that CHANDAH team will leverage the same process and dynamics to build the initiative as the TARA team did six years ago. The core of TARA’s strategy was to recruit highly educated, best-in-class professionals who could understand and break-down all facets of the economic chain and technical processes. As a result, while we started with virtually three individuals who had just lost jobs, no customers, employees, partners or operating systems, today TARA has best-in-class operations, and its utility management system is revered as the most reliable and customer-friendly engine in the industry.
CHANDAH has not engaged any technical expertise yet. We hope to provide the X PRIZE Foundation with technical plans expediently and as soon as they are developed and ready. Additionally, we hope that all technical plans will be pulled together by the best-in-class team members and technical partners just like that at TARA.
How, where, and when will your craft land on the Moon?
CHANDAH has not engaged help from an astrophysicist regarding its destination for landing yet. We hope to provide the X PRIZE Foundation with our landing plans expediently and as soon as they are developed and ready. Additionally, we hope that all plans regarding our choice of destination to land will be pulled together by the best-in-class team members and astrophysicists.
How will you communicate with and download information from your craft while it is on the Moon?
CHANDAH has not engaged help from any communications engineer regarding the modalities of how our spacecraft will communicate with our flight control on Earth. We hope to provide the X PRIZE Foundation with our exhaustive communications strategy and related technical information upon their development. Additionally, we hope that all our communications plan will be drawn up by a best-in-class team of engineers.
How will your vehicle will move on the Moon?
CHANDAH has not engaged help of mechanical engineers and avionics experts who can formulate the vehicle trajectory on the moon. We hope to provide the X PRIZE Foundation with our vehicle movement mechanics and strategy expediently and as soon as it is ready. Additionally, we hope that all plans regarding vehicular movement on the lunar surface will be pulled together by the best-in-class team members, engineers, and astrophysicists.
Which bonus prizes are you interested in?
We are unsure if we will be going for both the bonus prizes at this moment or just the base prize related to landing and roving. We hope to provide X PRIZE Foundation with our aspirations as soon as we understand the technical enormity of each bonus prize is evaluated and understood. Additionally, we hope to undertake an analysis of all possible technologies available in other endeavors of science to judge how these could be leveraged in achieving the Google Lunar X PRIZE challenge.
Roster
Adil Rahim Jafry – Chairman and CEO 
Prior to founding Tara Energy, Mr. Jafry was a principal of FoodTrader.com, a business-to-business electronic exchange focused on streamlining the fragmented global food industry. FoodTrader was named a top-50 internet company by the Forbes magazine in 2000, and was profiled on "Best of the Web" in 2001. Prior to this Mr. Jafry served as the founding member of the Global Investments group and the international project development at Enron Corp. Here he executed energy and infrastructure M&A transactions with over $4.5bn in value, including helping obtain financing for a $600MM (560MW) LNG fired power and steam cogeneration facility in Puerto Rico and for the corporate acquisition of $2.5bn Wessex Water in England. Mr. Jafry also worked closely with the commercial and finance teams on the $960MM acquisition of CEG/RIO GAS, the gas distribution companies for the city and state of Rio de Janeiro. Mr. Jafry has also worked at iVita Corp. in Business Development and for Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc., where he provided corporate finance and M&A advisory services to energy companies. Mr. Jafry is extremely active within the Greater Houston entrepreneurship network, and serves on the Board of Pratham (a charity geared towards enhancing child literacy).
