With just over 18 months left in the Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP) competition, one of the leading teams in the race is offering to give other teams a lift to the lunar surface, creating the potential for what it calls [...]]]>

An illustration of the Griffin lunar lander being developed by Astrobotic. (credit: Astrobotic)

With just over 18 months left in the Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP) competition, one of the leading teams in the race is offering to give other teams a lift to the lunar surface, creating the potential for what it calls “NASCAR on the Moon.” However, that team’s announcement raises questions about how it plans to get its own spacecraft there.

In a press release emailed yesterday (although, as of early Thursday morning, not posted on its website), Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic offered to carry rovers built by other GLXP teams to the Moon on Astrobotic’s Griffin lander. The company plans to send Griffin to the Lacus Mortis region of the Moon, near a pit that geologists think could lead to an underground lava tube cave.

In the release, Astrobotic said it would like to take rovers from at least four teams on that mission (it wasn’t clear if that meant four teams other that Astrobotic, which will have its own rover on the lander.) The rovers would exit the lander and then start moving simultaneously, effectively racing each other to travel 500 meters, one of the key requirements of the competition.

“Not only does the shared launch create a more exciting race for the Prize, it would be the first international competition beyond Earth orbit,” said Astrobotic CEO John Thornton in the release. It would also address one of the key obstacles for teams: while a number of teams are making progress on their rovers, fewer of them have developed systems to get those rovers to the lunar surface, or made arrangements to launch them.

In its press release, Astrobotic said that it plans to launch its lander on a Falcon 9 flying out of Cape Canaveral, Florida. That contract was announced in February 2011, with plans at that time to launch the mission “as soon as December 2013.” In an interview with Space News published last month, Thornton said they plan to launch in October 2015, and cited the discount SpaceX offered on its prices to GLXP teams that dates back to the announcement of the prize in 2007.

However, a check of SpaceX’s launch manifest fails to turn up a mission for Astrobotic, either in 2015 or later. The manifest shows 16 launches on the manifest for 2015, including 11 from Cape Canaveral, but Astrobotic is not listed among the customers. (Strictly speaking, SpaceX’s online manifest doesn’t specify when the launches take place but “vehicle arrival at launch site”, so some of the 2015 launches could slip into 2016; likewise, some of the 2014 missions listed could actually launch in 2015.)

It’s possible that Astrobotic’s omission from the manifest is an oversight, but if so, it’s a long-running one. A check of several archived versions of that manifest, obtained from the Internet Archive, failed to turn up a listing for Astrobotic. Manifests checked include those from April 2011, January 2012, October 2012, and July 2013.

Alternatively, Astrobotic could be flying as a secondary payload on another customer’s mission, and thus not appear on the manifest. That would require, though, finding a customer both willing to accept a secondary payload and one with significant excess capacity: enough to send a spacecraft with a mass that may be in excess of two tonnes (1,685 kilograms of fuel alone, plus payload and spacecraft, according to the company’s website) on a translunar injection trajectory.

A company spokesperson declined to provide additional details about the company’s launch arrangements. “We have no public update to the status of the launch at this time,” Lauren Schneider, director of communications for Astrobotic, said late Wednesday in an emailed response to an inquiry earlier in the day. SpaceX media relations did not respond to a question about Astrobotic’s launch plans Wednesday.

There’s now less than 21 months for teams competing for the Google Lunar X PRIZE to win the competition’s $20-million grand prize [...]]]>

An illustration of SpaceIL’s Sparrow lander on the surface of the Moon. The team’s bid to win the Google Lunar X PRIZE gained traction this month with a $16-million donation. (credit: SpaceIL)

There’s now less than 21 months for teams competing for the Google Lunar X PRIZE to win the competition’s $20-million grand prize for landing a spacecraft on the lunar surface, move at least 500 meters, and return HD video and images. Speculation has focused on two US companies, Astrobotic and Moon Express, as the likely front-runners for the competition among the 18 remaining active teams. However, another team made a major step this past week to move towards the front of the pack.

Israeli team SpaceIL announced Wednesday that it has received a $16.4-million donation from the Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Family Foundation. That amount is nearly half of SpaceIL’s estimated budget of $36 million to build and launch their mission. The team’s website states that they have $20 million in “cash and in-kind support” already raised; it’s not clear if this includes the donation.

The Adelson Family Foundation is funded by Sheldon Adelson, a billionaire who made his money with casinos, but is best known today for funding conservative political causes and candidates in the US. “As an entrepreneur, nothing is as thrilling as supporting a group of people who have been told that their dreams cannot be realized,” he said in the announcement of the donation. “We are proud to support Israel and SpaceIL [as they] prove that dreams do come true and that hard work, vision, and dedication are rewarded.”

SpaceIL’s spacecraft, Sparrow, is a small lander based on smallsat technology developed in Israel. The spacecraft doesn’t include a rover but instead will “hop” from one site to another to meet the competition’s 500-meter travel requirement. The team hasn’t secured a launch yet, but the team’s website says that a launch deal “be finalized in the first part of 2014.”

As SpaceIL and other GLXP teams try to get their vehicles ready by the competition deadline, the X PRIZE Foundation itself has worked out a television deal to cover it. Discovery Channel and Science Channel will be the “television homes” for the competition, according to a deal announced April 2. The networks will air a “miniseries event” about the competition, as well as live coverage of winning landing—assuming, of course, a team is able to land on the Moon by the end-2015 deadline.

“When the winning craft touches down on the moon’s surface, it’s going to trigger buzz and inspiration all over the world,” said Discovery Channel group vice president Eileen O’Neill in a statement announcing the deal. “Our intention is to provide a live, front-row seat to history being made,” she added, likening it to other adventure reality programming by the network.

Terms of the deal, including the fee Discovery Channel paid for the rights, weren’t announced. Ownership of media rights for the competition had been a sticking point for some teams in earlier debates about the competition’s Master Team Agreement.

On Saturday morning (US time), China’s Chang’e-3 spacecraft successfully landed on the surface of the Moon, making it the first spacecraft to soft-land on the Moon since Luna 24 in August [...]]]>

Moon Express CEO Bob Richards shows off his company’s MX-1 lander during an event in Las Vegas on December 5. (credit: Moon Express)

On Saturday morning (US time), China’s Chang’e-3 spacecraft successfully landed on the surface of the Moon, making it the first spacecraft to soft-land on the Moon since Luna 24 in August 1976. (Other spacecraft had crash-landed on the Moon since then, primarily orbiters at the end of their mission.) By Sunday the spacecraft will deploy its Yutu, or “Jade Rabbit,” rover, which will explore the Bay of Rainbows landing site for three months or more.

As I reported earlier this month in The Space Review, the landing is a setback for the Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP), which offers $30 million in prizes for the first privately developed spacecraft to land on the Moon, traverse at least 500 meters, and take a set of photos and videos from those locations. When the prize started in September 2007, there was a widely-held belief among many supporters of commercial spaceflight that the next spacecraft to land on the Moon would belong to the winning team. For a time, the prize also included a “government landing penalty,” where the $20-million grand prize would be decreased to $15 million should a government land on the Moon before a GLXP team.

As GLXP teams have struggled to develop their spacecraft, the X PRIZE Foundation restructured the prize to remove that penalty, and unveiled in its place a set of “Milestone Prizes” that will provide near-term awards to teams that demonstrate the development of key subsystems in the next year.

Many of the teams have not made significant progress and appear unlikely to have a vehicle ready to fly before the prize deadline of the end of 2015. A few, though, appear to still be in the game. In The Space Review article, I profiled a couple such teams: Moon Express and Penn State Lunar Lion, who are taking different technical and organizational approaches to winning the prize. A couple of others, Astrobotic Technology and Barcelona Moon Team, have launch contracts in place for their missions, a key “long lead” item needed to be ready to fly by the end of 2015.

And, since that article, Moon Express made a major announcement. On December 5, the company unveiled its MX-1 lunar lander design, which appears to be the “micro lunar lander” the company talked about this summer. The MX-1 is a small spacecraft (“about the size of a large coffee table,” the company says in its announcement) that uses hydrogen peroxide thrusters to land on the lunar surface. Those thrusters also make use of kerosene “as an after burner” to provide additional thrust to escape from Earth orbit. The spacecraft doesn’t appear to make use of landing legs, instead sitting on the surface on a circular base; the announcement is vague about this and other technical details about the spacecraft.

“This is an incredibly, incredibly powerful piece of technology,” Moon Express CEO Bob Richards said when unveiling a full-size model of the spacecraft during the closing ceremonies of the Autodesk University conference in Las Vegas. The unveiling had a Star Trek theme, with the soundtrack of the original TV series playing as three people wearing Enterprise uniforms removed the top of a faux rock, underneath which was the lander model.

In its press release, Moon Express noted the MX-1 design has applications beyond landing on the Moon, including satellite servicing and space tug uses in Earth orbit. “The MX-1 is not just a lunar lander, it is a spacecraft workhorse with many markets” Richards said in the release. “The MX-1 is the ‘iPhone of space’; a platform capable of supporting many apps including our core plan of exploring the Moon for resources of benefit to humanity.”

Moon Express and the other GLXP teams now have just over 24 months to do what now three countries—the former Soviet Union, the US, and China—have done: land a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon.

One of the few Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP) competitors that has an announced launch contract—one of the key milestones in demonstrating the ability to carry out the mission—has pushed back that planned launch until mid-2015.

Barcelona Moon Team announced Wednesday that it has reset the date [...]]]>

Barcelona Moon Team’s planned rover. (credit: BCM)

One of the few Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP) competitors that has an announced launch contract—one of the key milestones in demonstrating the ability to carry out the mission—has pushed back that planned launch until mid-2015.

Barcelona Moon Team announced Wednesday that it has reset the date of its launch attempt, using a Chinese Long March 2C rocket, to June 2015. The Spanish team said in a brief blog post that “the date has been shift [sic] to adjust to the new technical milestone calendar which came out of the latest core team meetings,” without providing additional details.

The announcement comes almost exactly a year after the team announced its contract with China Great Wall Industry Corporation (CGWIC). At that time, they were targeting a June 2014 launch of their lunar lander and rover. Neither last year, nor in this week’s announcement, did the team disclose the value of the launch contract or how much the team has paid to CGWIC to date. Barcelona Moon Team has also been in discussions with CGWIC about using a Chinese propulsion system in the lander.

The team, in its blog posts, hasn’t disclosed many details about the development of its rover, beyond it being a four-wheel design with at least a minimal payload to comply with the GLXP requirements to send video and image “Mooncasts” after landing. Barcelona Moon Team is affiliated with Galactic Suite, a company that has announced plans to develop commercial space stations for space tourism but has appeared to make little concrete progress in recent years (in 2009, for example, the company claimed to be on schedule to start flying customers in 2012.)

However, Barcelona Moon Team does stand out as one of the few teams that has made launch arrangements, a key milestone for the teams competing for the GLXP. Astrobotic Technology has a contract with SpaceX for a Falcon 9 launch of its Polaris rover in 2015, and other teams have been investigating secondary payload accommodations. Given the usual lead time for launch contracts, though, such arrangements need to be in place in the relatively near future in order to launch before the prize expires at the end of 2015.

On Wednesday, during a summit of the teams participating in the Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP) competition in Washington, Moon Express announced it was acquiring another team, Next Giant Leap (NGL). The acquisition will “leverage and carry forward the substantial work” done by NGL and [...]]]>

Illustration of Moon Express's proposed lander. (credit: Moon Express)

On Wednesday, during a summit of the teams participating in the Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP) competition in Washington, Moon Express announced it was acquiring another team, Next Giant Leap (NGL). The acquisition will “leverage and carry forward the substantial work” done by NGL and its partners, although the release does not go into specifics about how NGL’s technology or other capabilities will be integrated into Moon Express. Moon Express’s Bob Richards tells MSNBC that NGL’s control system, developed by Draper Labs, is perhaps the biggest part of the acquisition.

Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed; Richards would only say the deal “involved a payment to Next Giant Leap” (unclear if it was cash, equity, or some combination), and that two NGL co-founders, Michael Joyce and Todd Mosher, would join Moon Express as advisors.

While this specific deal might have been a surprise, the fact that teams are acquiring one another, and making other hard decisions about their future plans, should not be. “This year is going to be a very interesting year: it’s the first of the two shake-up years when reality hits and teams really figure out whether they need to move forward or decide they have gone as far as they can go,” said Alex Hall, senior director of the Google Lunar X PRIZE, during a talk at the National Space Society’s International Space Development Conference (ISDC) in Washington on Sunday.

Although the GLXP prizes remain available through the end of 2015, meeting that deadline requires making some decisions soon, such as making launch arrangements, and raising the money needed to pay for those launches. “That is the big issue for the majority of the teams, being able to get the funding in time to make those down payments, or to put their parts together if they’re building a rocket,” she said.

Hall showed the results of a survey of the then 26 teams participating in the competition, where 46 percent said they had raised less than a quarter of the funding they needed, and 35 percent said would merge with another team or drop out of the competition if they didn’t raise “major” funding this year. “If you’re not at the point by the end of this year where you’re substantially far along in both your spacecraft and your launch contract negotiations, you’re probably not going to be making an attempt before the end of 2015,” she said.

So, expect some more changes among the 25 teams now remaining in the competition in the months to come, as some seek to merge to improve their chances to win the prize, while others may have to throw in the towel. “Things really are going to get very interesting,” Hall said.

At a luncheon on Wednesday in Washington, the Heinlein Prize Trust awarded its second Heinlein Prize for accomplishments in commercial space activities to Elon Musk, the founder, CEO, and CTO of SpaceX. At the luncheon, which attracted an [...]]]>

Elon Musk gives a speech accepting the Heinlein Prize on June 29, 2011, in Washington, DC.

At a luncheon on Wednesday in Washington, the Heinlein Prize Trust awarded its second Heinlein Prize for accomplishments in commercial space activities to Elon Musk, the founder, CEO, and CTO of SpaceX. At the luncheon, which attracted an audience from the public and private sectors, including NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver and FAA associate administrator for commercial space transportation George Nield, Musk received the $250,000 prize and its accoutrements, a “Laureate’ Diploma” and a sword. Yes, a full-sized sword, the “Lady Vivamus Sword”, from the Heinlein novel Glory Road. “I love the sword in particular, it’s pretty awesome,” Musk said. (Musk, who attended the luncheon with his wife, Tallulah Riley, and two of his young sons, had to remind the boys that the sword, with a sharpened blade, was not a plaything.)

In his acceptance speech, Musk provided an overview of what SpaceX is doing (accompanied by a video, as is the case with nearly every company presentation, regardless of the venue). He did note in the Q&A session after his speech that the company has been “slightly’ profitable the last four years and anticipates being profitable again this year, so the company doesn’t have an immediate need for capital. However, he said he is considering an initial public offering (IPO) of stock, perhaps late next year. “The public markets are a very efficient way to raise capital,” he said, “and it’s probably a good move to have a capital reserve.” SpaceX has talked from time to time over the last several years about doing an IPO; one drawback he acknowledged Wednesday is that by going public it opens up the company’s plans to scrutiny from investors who may have shorter time horizons than Musk and other current investors. “How will the public markets respond to super-long-term thinking?”

That “super-long-term thinking” was a reference to comments he made in his speech about his goal of making humanity a multi-planet species, something that requires a major reduction in launch costs. “This is the first time in four billion years that it’s possible for life to become multiplanetary,” he said. “That window may be open for a long time, and I’m reasonably optimistic about life on Earth, but it may be open for only a short time. And if it is only open for a short time, we must take advantage of it and take action now to make like multiplanetary.” To do that, he said, requires “orders of magnitude” changes in cost and reliability, something that SpaceX hopes to achieve over time.

Doing so, he said, requires being on a “path of continuous improvement” in launch capabilities, something that doesn’t exist today. “Space has not been on a path of continuous improvement. It has arguably been on a path of decline,” he said, noting that we could go to the Moon in 1969 but we’re retiring this month the only US vehicle that can carry people to orbit. “That trend line is going in the wrong direction. It needs to be dramatically reversed, and I’m hopeful SpaceX will make a significant contribution in that direction.”

While Musk might be interested in fostering a multiplanet species, not everyone in his family is necessarily onboard. In his opening remarks, prize trustree Art Dula, referring to Musk’s two sons in attendance, said that “these are the fellas that are going to ride these rockets when they go beyond Earth orbit,” at which point one of the boys cried a note of protest: “No I’m not!” (or something to that effect.) “Oh, my goodness,” Dula said to laughter from the audience. “Well, we hope anyways.”

Elon Musk (center) holds the sword and diploma he received from members of the Heinlein Prize Trust, including Art Dula (second from right).