Moon Express also announced “The Moon is ME” Lunar Mining Design Competition as a global challenge to design lunar mining tools that the MERLIN rovers can utilize to acquire and transport lunar samples containing valuable metals and minerals. The competition is global and open to students as well as professional designers using Autodesk software. The top designs will be prototyped and demonstrated in a field test competition at Moon Express facilities at the NASA Research Park in Silicon Valley. The winning prize design will be funded by the company for potential test and demonstration on the Moon.

In essence, Moon Express is going to crowd source these valuable tools instead of hiring people to internally design them.

It’s a clever approach. The company taps into a large user base. The competition generates great publicity. Moon Express will not only get the tools produced by the winner, but it will gain quite a bit of knowledge in reviewing all the different designs submitted. And it doesn’t bear the direct cost of developing the designs internally.

The designers will willingly work for free for the “potential” of having their creation tested and demonstrated on the lunar surface.  The winner will get quite a bit of renown for winning the competition. And that would certainly enhance the winner’s career prospects.

The rules for the competition are not published yet. It will be interesting to see how IP rights are handled. Does the designer keep those rights? Will the company compensate the designer for them? Or are they turned over to Moon Express as part of winning the competition?

These are not trivial matters. Lunar mining is a potentially billion- or even trillion-dollar business.  Anyone who creates patentable technologies for that industry will want to be compensated properly.

A Google Lunar X prize highlights reel showing progress by 26 teams from around the world that are building robots, rockets, and lunar landing vehicles.

During the Sample Return Robot Challenge, teams will compete to demonstrate a robot that can locate and retrieve geologic samples from a wide and varied terrain without human control. The objective of the competition is to encourage innovations in automatic navigation and robotic manipulator technologies. Innovations stemming from this challenge may improve NASA’s capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation’s robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth.

“NASA’s Centennial Challenges competitions engage teams from across the country to solve the technology hurdles NASA faces as we explore new frontiers,” said Mike Gazarik, director of NASA’s Space Technology Program in Washington. “We’re looking forward to teams registering to compete, so they can unleash their creative problem-solvers to take on this robotic technology challenge.”

NASA provides the prize money to the winning team as part of the agency’s Centennial Challenges competitions, which seek unconventional solutions to problems of interest to the agency and the nation. While NASA provides the prize purse, the competitions are managed by non-profit organizations that cover the cost of operations through commercial or private sponsorships. The competition is planned for June 2012 in Worcester and is anticipated to attract hundreds of competitors from industry and academia nationwide.

“WPI takes tremendous pride in being the first university selected by NASA as a partner for a Centennial Challenge,” said WPI President and CEO Dennis D. Berkey. “This university is a hub of expertise and innovation within the area of robotics, and like NASA, we believe strongly in the promise of this industry. Accordingly, we have invested deeply in growing our programs and growing interest in the field among young people. We are looking forward to an exciting competition.”

There have been 21 NASA Centennial Challenges competitions since 2005. Through this program, NASA has awarded $4.5 million to 13 different challenge-winning teams. Competitors have included private companies, student groups and independent inventors working outside the traditional aerospace industry. Unlike contracts or grants, prizes are awarded only after solutions are successfully demonstrated.

For more information about the Sample Return Robot Challenge, visit: http://challenge.wpi.edu

The Centennial Challenges program is part of NASA’s Office of the Chief Technologist. For more information about NASA’s Centennial Challenges and the Office of the Chief Technologist, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/oct

Both GRAIL spacecraft have separated on schedule from the second stage of the Delta II rocket and are now flying to the moon. So far, all systems are working as expected. It will take the two spacecraft until New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day to reach the moon.

Artist's concept of the GRAIL mission. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Mission Overview

The GRAIL mission will place two spacecraft into the same orbit around the Moon. As they fly over areas of greater and lesser gravity, caused both by visible features such as mountains and craters and by masses hidden beneath the lunar surface, they will move slightly toward and away from each other. An instrument aboard each spacecraft will measure the changes in their relative velocity very precisely, and scientists will translate this information into a high-resolution map of the Moon’s gravitational field.

This gravity-measuring technique is essentially the same as that of the Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE), which has been mapping Earth’s gravity since 2002.

Objectives

GRAIL’s engineering objectives are to enable the science objectives of mapping lunar gravity and using that information to increase understanding of the Moon’s interior and thermal history. Getting the two spacecraft where they need to be, when they need to be there, requires an extremely challenging set of maneuvers never before carried out in solar system exploration missions.

Mission design

The two GRAIL spacecraft will fly similar but separate trajectories to the Moon after separation from the launch vehicle. They will spend about 2 months reshaping and merging their orbits until one spacecraft is following the other in the same low-altitude, near-circular, near-polar orbit, and they begin formation-flying. The next 82 days will constitute the science phase, during which the spacecraft will map the Moon’s gravitational field.

Spacecraft and payload

The two GRAIL spacecraft are near-twins, each about the size of a washing machine, with minor differences resulting from the need for one specific spacecraft (GRAIL-A) to follow the other (GRAIL-B) as they circle the Moon.

The science payload on each spacecraft is the Lunar Gravity Ranging System, which will measure changes in the distance between the two spacecraft down to a few microns — about the diameter of a red blood cell. Each spacecraft will also carry a set of cameras for MoonKAM, marking the first time a NASA planetary mission has carried instruments expressly for an education and public outreach project.

Management

JPL manages the GRAIL mission. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, is home to the mission’s principal investigator, Maria Zuber. The GRAIL mission is part of the Discovery Program managed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft. Launch management for the mission is the responsibility of NASA’s Launch Services Program at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Video Caption: We have an incredibly hard working team at Moon Express who pulled us through some tough challenges over the last few months. There were many days that just didn’t end… but it all paid off with a number of successful technical milestones, including the delivery of our Mini-Radar data package to NASA and our first free flight of the Lander Test Vehicle, sporting new hardware and software developed by our Moon Express engineers in collaboration with NASA.

To celebrate, we flew the whole company up to Seattle on August 5th, 2011, to enjoy the amazing ‘SeaFair’ boat and air show aboard our chairman’s yacht (thank you Naveen & Anu!). With hydroplanes racing around us and Blue Angels screaming by unnervingly close, the team was able to let off some steam and have some fun together.

We have amazing people at Moon Express, all exceptionally talented and motivated individuals with interesting backgrounds… which we will tell you about in future webisodes of the Moon Express story.

They are also a lot of fun, as you’ll see in this video capturing some of the lighter moments of that extremely memorable day on Lake Washington…

Huntsville, Ala. (Sept. 2, 2011)

The RCSP team conducted testing on a new, non-toxic “green” hydrogen peroxide-kerosene bi-propellant rocket thruster developed by Dynetics to meet the performance needs of the team’s robotic lander propulsion subsystem.  The new rocket thruster was successfully tested in flight relevant environments, providing volumes of data for NASA on the design and performance of this technology. Teammates at Draper Laboratories developed initial guidance, navigation, and control (GN&C) precision landing algorithms to provide testing profiles, and Teledyne Brown Engineering provided thermal analysis inputs used to optimize the design.

The team also provided data from ongoing lunar rover prototype testing. RCSP and teammates at the University of Alabama Huntsville and Andrews Space, supported by the University of Washington, completed demonstrations of the miniature rover wheel designs and vision-based driving algorithms.

RCSP is developing a low-cost lunar lander/rover system for conducting commercial and scientific missions on the moon and potentially other planetary bodies. The lander/rover system is capable of making a soft landing on a planetary body and deploying the rover.

“Our team is excited to be contributing to NASA’s mission of pioneering space exploration,” said Tim Pickens, team leader of the Rocket City Space Pioneers. “We are pleased with the results of our rocket engine’s hot-fire test and look forward to continued work on our lander and rover and future opportunities with NASA.”

About Dynetics

Dynetics Inc., with headquarters in Huntsville, Ala., and offices throughout the United States, has delivered high-quality, high-value engineering, scientific and information technology solutions to customers within the U.S. government and a range of other market segments since 1974. The company’s mission is to deliver superior quality, high-technology products and services ethically, responsively and cost effectively to meet customer needs in the areas of intelligence, missiles, aviation, cyber and space. Visit www.dynetics.com for more details.

About The Rocket City Space Pioneers

The Rocket City Space Pioneers is a team of Alabama-centric businesses and organizations formed to prove that robotic space exploration can be an affordable and sustainable commercial endeavor. Team members include Dynetics (team leader), Teledyne Brown, Draper Laboratory, Teledyne Brown, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, Andrews Space, Spaceflight Services, Moog, the Von Braun Center for Science & Innovation, the University of Alabama Huntsville, the Huntsville Center for Technology.

About the Google Lunar X PRIZE

The $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE is an unprecedented international competition that challenges and inspires engineers and entrepreneurs from around the world to develop low-cost methods of robotic

space exploration. 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, rove on the lunar surface for a minimum of 500 meters, and transmit a specific set of video, images and data back to the Earth. For more information about the Google Lunar X PRIZE, please visit www.googlelunarxprize.org.

About the X PRIZE Foundation

The X PRIZE Foundation is an educational nonprofit prize institute whose mission is to create radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity. In 2004, the Foundation captured world headlines when Burt Rutan, backed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, built and flew the world’s first private vehicle to space to win the $10 million Ansari X PRIZE. The Foundation has since launched the $10 million Archon X PRIZE for Genomics, the $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE and the $10 million Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE. The Foundation is creating and conducting competitions in four prize groups: Exploration (Space and Oceans), Life Sciences, Energy & Environment, and Education & Global Development. The Foundation is widely recognized as the leader in fostering innovation through competition. For more information, please visit www.xprize.org.

Carnegie Mellon University PhD student Krzysztof Skonieczny discusses his work on developing the lightweight lunar excavator robot bucket-wheel, as well as some views on the future of space exploration, in this video from Astrobotic Technology.

“The facts of the matter are that the MTA [Master Team Agreement] is nothing more than a one-sided ‘legal framework’ to benefit the X PRIZE Foundation and Google while placing an unreasonable burden on the teams. The agreement is egregiously one-sided, overly burdensome, oppressive and unconscionable,” Team Mystical Moon wrote in a blog post.

The post goes on to list a series of grievances concerning the competition, including “unconscionable” requirements concerning media and intellectual property rights and alleged conflicts of interest involving the X Prize Foundation’s Board of Trustees.

Consequently, the X PRIZE Foundation (and Google) refuses to address the following issues:

1. The X PRIZE Foundation (and Google) are in BREACH of the “legally binding” MTA Version 3.0.
2. The Media and Intellectual Property Rights requirements are unconscionable.
3. Exhibit B (and other ridiculous requirements) are extremely oppressive, overly burdensome and totally unnecessary to achieve the TRUE goals and objectives of the competition.
4. There exists a serious “Conflict of Interest” issue with the Trustees of the Board, employees and incestuous long-term relationships with the X PRIZE Foundation.
5. The Dispute Resolution process (Version 3.0 MTA Exhibit A Section 9) is totally without merit.
6. The MTA is full of “caveats” that allow XPF the “option” to “at its discretion” make “decisions” that are “not-so-black-and-white.”
7. The unprofessional, unethical and bad faith behavior of the management and employees of the X PRIZE Foundation needs to stop.

The MTA [PDF] gives the X Prize Foundation and Google all of the media and many of the IP rights to the mission. Eligible teams will receive a share of the revenues after all expenses and a management fee are deducted.

At least a half dozen teams, several of which are serious contenders, have discussed dropping out of the $30 million competition before launching their missions unless changes are made in these provisions. The teams believe they can make money off their flights without the prize money and that they can do better controlling their own rights.

Mystical Moon’s blast is a response to a recent blog post titled “About the MTA…” by recently appointed GLXP Senior Director Alexandra Hall. In that post, Hall explained that the MTA exists to “define what needs to be done to win the competition(s) and to provide a legal framework for that.”

The agreement between the X PRIZE Foundation (“X PRIZE”) and Google that was signed in 2007 includes a number of stipulations about how the competition is to be run along with the requirements for winning the prize(s). Then there are specific requirements that relate to X PRIZE and Google’s goals for the promotion of the space economy and the inspiration of the next generation of scientists and engineers through this competition. Executing on these goals requires agreement on related items such as logo, media tracking, and approval rights. There are also important requirements involving liability (working with rockets tends to raise this issue!) and not very exciting things like the reporting requirements from X PRIZE to Google.

All of these items, which are in the agreement between Google and X PRIZE, were the basis behind the requirements that have then been put into the MTA that teams have to sign up to in order to participate in this prize.

Hall sidestepped the key complaints about media and IP rights while focusing primarily upon GLXP’s enforcement of blogging requirements by the teams. That approach didn’t sit well with Team Mystical Moon, which wrote:

Furthermore, we can never get an honest answer from either the X PRIZE Foundation or Google as to the source of many of these ridiculous requirements. The X PRIZE Foundation has often stated that they flow from their agreement with Google but refuses to share that agreement with the teams. And recently, Google has also side stepped the issues by refusing to reply when asked this very question.

Meanwhile, Tiffany Montague, director of space initiatives for Google, publically [sic] makes a vague and ambiguous statement while refusing to answer the question altogether:

“Montague added that the MTA was an agreement between X Prize Foundation and the teams. I asked her whether controlling the IP and media rights was a condition of Google funding the prize, a question she did not answer.”

Therefore, the X PRIZE Foundation and Google continues to play “Ring Around the Rosy” with the teams regarding these matters. It is very obvious that after nearly 4 years neither entity intends to address the issues but rather will continue their legal tactics to “bully” the teams and attempt to force these requirements down their throat.

Montague made those comments during a panel discussion last month at the NewSpace 2011 conference. She insisted that Google was sponsoring the prize because of its founders’ desire to expand the frontiers of space, that the company expected no return on investment from the competition, and that it didn’t need the money or the publicity.

If true, it raises the obvious question of why the foundation and Google need that much control. A source connected with the X Prize Foundation told me that the media and IP requirements were a condition of Google funding the prize. This person told me that most of the revenues will go to Google, and that neither the foundation nor Google expect very much in revenues.

The conflict of interest charge refers to X Prize Foundation Trustee Naveen Jain, a tech millionaire who is chairman and co-founder of Moon Express, one of the competitors for the Google Lunar X Prize. Hall addressed that issue in an earlier blog post:

For non-employees of the X PRIZE Foundation, such as Trustees and Supporters, there are also strong conflict of interest rules. As Cristin Dorgelo stated in response to a commentator raising the issue about an X PRIZE Foundation Trustee who was also involved with a Google Lunar X PRIZE team, there are disclosure and recusing requirements which mean that anyone who has an interest in a competing team has to leave the room when the Google Lunar X PRIZE is discussed. Trustees and supporters with interest in teams in our competitions have no access to insider information or any influence on operational decisions.

We’ll see where this goes. Sometime in the next three years, one of the GLXP competitors will launch a rover to the moon. Whether they will still be competing for Google’s prize money remains to be seen.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Aug. 24, 2011 /PRNewswire/ – Moon Express, a Google Lunar X PRIZE contender, announced today that it has successfully demonstrated a critical component of its lunar landing technology to NASA under its Innovative Lunar Demonstration Data (ILDD) Program contract. The Moon Express Mini-Radar System promises to radically reduce the cost and mass of the company’s commercial lunar landing system. NASA has reviewed and accepted the Moon Express Mini-Radar data package, satisfying the requirements of the $500K First Task Order under the company’s $10M commercial lunar data contract.

Silicon Valley-based Moon Express was one of only three U.S. companies awarded the first Task Order under NASA’s ILDD program. Under the task order, NASA agreed to purchase data resulting from the successful test and demonstration of the company’s state-of-the-art Mini-Radar sensor, a critical component of its lunar landing system.

Radar provides autonomous landing spacecraft with crucial ranging information to the surface and has been one of the most challenging and high risk elements of all lander systems. Radar systems have also been historically very expensive in terms of dollars, mass and energy. As part of its risk reduction engineering activities, Moon Express initiated a program to continue the development, test and space qualification of an innovative, low cost, low mass, low energy radar concept invented by Stellar Exploration that showed great promise through progressive developments under NASA Small Business Innovation and Research (SBIR) programs. The Moon Express investment significantly advanced the radar technology toward spaceflight readiness.

The testing and space validation of the Mini-Radar involved multiple units subjected to a series of laboratory and field testing. These included multiple dynamic tests on the Lunar Lander Test Vehicle, developed in partnership with NASA, and long range tests on the Zeppelin ‘Eureka’, owned and operated by Airship Ventures, which took the Mini-Radar on flight tests down the California coast and at the Oshkosh Airshow. Additional environmental testing in thermal-vacuum and vibration chambers proved the ruggedness of the Mini-Radar design for spaceflight.

For more information, please visit: www.moonexpress.com

PITTSBURGH, PA

Lava tubes and other types of caves can shelter astronauts and robots from harsh off-world environments, which on the Moon means micrometeorite bombardment, intense radiation and extreme temperature swings of 500 degrees from day to night. Cave-dwelling by early astronauts and robots likely will be less expensive than bringing shelter materials all the way from Earth.

Astrobotic Technology, in cooperation with Carnegie Mellon University, is preparing a robotic expedition to the Moon to be launched in the December 2013 – July 2014 time frame.

Astrobotic was one of 30 companies, universities and NASA organizations that were selected for negotiation today by the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program in the Office of Chief Technologist. The approximately $100,000 award is to cover a year-long study starting next month.

Astrobotic will be eligible for a $500,000 Phase 2 award next year to continue the work.

Dr. Alan Stern

Mountain View, CA (July 20, 2011) - Moon Express, a Google Lunar X PRIZE contender, revealed today that internationally recognized planetary scientist Dr. Alan Stern will be the Chief Scientist and Mission Architect for the company. The announcement was made as lunar scientists from around the world gather at the NASA Ames Research Park for their annual Lunar Science Forum, convened by the NASA Lunar Science Institute.

Dr. Stern is the former NASA Associate Administrator for Science and is an outspoken advocate for commercial space who believes in the power of private enterprise to complement government efforts. While at NASA he presided over $4.5B of planetary science, astrophysics, heliophysics, and Earth science missions while, also serving as the Principle Investigator of the agency’s New Horizon’s mission to Pluto.

“I am thrilled to be working with the Moon Express team as Chief Scientist,” he said. “Moon Express has the business model, talent, and the resources to blaze a commercial trail to the Moon and revolutionize the way we do lunar science and exploration. The lunar future is bright.”

Named by Time Magazine as one of the world’s most influential people, Dr. Stern has pushed many boundaries of science with innovative experiments and mission initiatives, including booking 8 suborbital spaceflights on Virgin Galactic and XCOR spaceships for space research. As Chief Scientist of Moon Express, Dr. Stern is helping the company design lunar missions that will support the company’s commercial operations leading the company’s research into materials on the Moon that could have scientific and economic value for Earth and space exploration.

“We are honored to have a scientist of Alan Stern’s caliber working with us,” said Moon Express co-founder and CEO Dr. Robert (Bob) Richards. “Alan’s unique combination of optimism, deep experience, and no-nonsense style helps propel Moon Express forward while remaining focused on the achievable.”

About Moon Express

Selected by Forbes as one of the ’15 Names You Should Know’, Moon Express is a privately funded lunar transportation and data services company based at the NASA Ames Research Park in Silicon Valley.  Moon Express was founded by Naveen Jain, a philanthropist, entrepreneur and technology pioneer who founded Intelius and InfoSpace and serves as Chairman; Dr. Robert (Bob) Richards, a founder of International Space University, who serves as CEO; and Dr. Barney Pell, Chief Architect for Bing Local Search at Microsoft and former NASA manager, who serves as Vice Chairman and Chief Technology Officer. The Moon Express co-founders also work together as trustees of Singularity University.

Moon Express emerged quickly onto the stage last year when the company was selected by NASA for a lunar data services contract worth up to $10M. It was also one of only three U.S. companies to receive a $500K delivery order under NASA’s Innovative Lunar Demonstrations Data (ILDD) program.

Moon Express is also a leading contender in the $30M Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP) competition, which challenges privately funded teams to place a robot on the Moon’s surface that travels 500 meters and transmits high definition video, images and data back to Earth.

The Moon Express founders believe in the long term economic potential of the Moon to produce resources essential to Earth’s energy future.  Moon Express has captured the interest of the mining community and was featured in a recent issue of Resource World magazine: Robot Pioneers to Mine the Moon .

For more information, please visit: www.moonexpress.com

Happy 42nd birthday, Apollo 11! You don’t look a day over 29.

C-Base Open Moon, a Germany-based competitor, has withdrawn from the $30 million moon race. In a blog post, the team said:

After long and difficult discussions we had to come to the conclusion that we aren´t able to keep up with the requirements of the last Master Team Agreement.

At the end of 2010 it became more and more clear for us, that we wouldn’t be able to stay in the GLXP the way we were organized at that time. This was even more obvious, when we realized how the MTA was structured and what kind of organization would be necessary to keep up with it.

The efforts to change into a company, for improving our capabilities to focus on several parts of the technological and administrational efforts defined not only be the MTA turned out to be much to complicated to be taken within a few months.

We are not a company. We are just a bunch of Open Source evangelists, and morphing into entrepreneurs over night was hardly to achieve. That’s more less the whole truth.

Although the team has dropped out of the Google Lunar X Prize, it will continue its efforts in other areas:

Open Moon is not dead!

We all have learned a lot and will use this for our further explorations.

Right now we are looking for downsized space projects or competitions we might be able to enter and we are bringing up up some ideas for a competition we could run by our own. Please have a look onto our media channels as known. We continue communicating….

C-Base Open Moon is the fifth team to drop out of the competition. Twenty-eight teams remain.

Silicon Valley, CA (June 30, 2011) – Moon Express, Inc. today announced a successful flight test of a prototype lunar lander system being developed in partnership with NASA.

The company signed a Reimbursable Space Act Agreement with NASA last year to invest over $500K into the commercialization of technology developed by the agency. The agreement is aimed at developing new low-cost spacecraft able to deliver scientific and exploration payloads to the Moon and other destinations. The flight test marks an important milestone in the collaborative agreement, demonstrating that innovative public-private partnerships can be utilized to establish new capabilities of mutual benefit to commercial space companies and NASA.

For Moon Express, the opportunity to commercialize NASA knowledge and technology to create a commercially viable lunar lander system is a force multiplier of its private investment. Small spacecraft missions promise great value given their significantly lower cost structure, rapid development and deployment schedules, resulting in more frequent missions within a set budget and time frame compared to the status quo. The Moon Express partnership agreement with NASA is consistent with initiatives to embrace commercial entities to help move the whole industry forward.

The successful milestone involved a controlled flight test of a Landing Test Vehicle (LTV). The LTV is a prototype robotic lunar lander system, outfitted with a cold gas propulsion system and landing gear for use in a confined, ground test environment for relatively easy, quick, and repeatable ground testing. The LTV offers a unique capability to safely perform risk reduction and testing on candidate spacecraft hardware and software in an actual flight environment. The LTV tests are allowing Moon Express to assess lunar vehicle design, including guidance, navigation and control software and new landing leg and mobility concepts designed by Moon Express engineers. The LTV is also being used to test a new mini-radar sensor developed by Moon Express under NASA’s Innovative Lunar Demonstrations Data (ILDD) program.

The company plans to send a series of robotic spacecraft to the Moon for ongoing exploration and commercial development focused on benefits to Earth. “I believe in the long term economic potential of the Moon to produce resources essential to Earth’s energy future,” said Naveen Jain, Co-Founder and Chairman of Moon Express. “The recent discovery of abundant water on the Moon is the key we needed to economically liberate valuable lunar resources such as Helium-3 and platinum group metals to improve life here on Earth.”

Dr. Barney Pell, Co-Founder, CTO and Vice Chairman of Moon Express, believes that exploration and development of lunar resources is one of the most important activities for humanity’s future. “The Moon has never been explored before from an entrepreneurial perspective,” he said. “I believe the Moon may be the greatest wealth creation opportunity in history. It’s not a question of if; just of who and when.”

Moon Express plans to adapt NASA’s Common Spacecraft Bus for use in small, low cost spacecraft designed to deliver payloads to a variety of locations, including lunar orbit and lunar surface, Low Earth Orbit (LEO), Earth-Moon Lagrange points, and Near Earth Objects (NEOs). The Common Spacecraft Bus design allows the company to design low cost missions, launch on a variety of commercial rockets and deliver flexible payloads to the lunar surface and various orbits.

The company views NASA’s partnership as exemplary of a commitment to help nurture the burgeoning commercial spacecraft industry. Under the agreement, Moon Express is reimbursing NASA for technical assistance interpreting NASA designs of the Common Spacecraft Bus for applicability to the company’s new lunar vehicle design and in the evaluation and testing of new spacecraft systems and software in a newly refitted hover test facility.

Following the successful flight test, Moon Express CEO, Dr. Robert (Bob) Richards stated that White House policies supporting NASA’s openness to commercial partnerships combined with Silicon Valley culture has been a winning combination for the company. “Locating the company in the NASA Research Park puts us at the crossroads of the future,” Richards said. “Silicon Valley has embraced commercial space and Moon Express is benefitted greatly by our proximity to the NASA Ames Research Center.”

About Moon Express

Selected by Forbes as one of the ’15 Names You Should Know’, Moon Express is a privately funded lunar transportation and data services company based at the NASA Ames Research Park in Silicon Valley. Moon Express was founded by Naveen Jain, a philanthropist, entrepreneur and technology pioneer who founded Intelius and InfoSpace and serves as chairman; Dr. Robert (Bob) Richards, a founder of International Space University, who serves as CEO; and Dr. Barney Pell, Chief Architect for Bing Local Search at Microsoft and former NASA manager, who serves as Vice Chairman and Chief Technology Officer. The Moon Express co-founders also work together as trustees of Singularity University.

Moon Express emerged quickly onto the stage last year when the company was selected by NASA for a lunar data services contract worth up to $10M. It was also one of only three U.S. companies to receive a $500K delivery order under NASA’s Innovative Lunar Demonstrations Data (ILDD) program.

Moon Express is also a leading contender in the $30M Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP) competition, which challenges privately funded teams to place a robot on the Moon’s surface that travels 500 meters and transmits high definition video, images and data back to Earth.

The Moon Express founders believe in the long term economic potential of the Moon to produce resources essential to Earth’s energy future. Moon Express has captured the interest of the mining community and was featured in a recent issue of Resource World magazine: Robot Pioneers to Mine the Moon .

For more information, please visit: www.moonexpress.com

X PRIZE UPDATE

Today, the X PRIZE Foundation announced the official roster of 29 registered teams competing for the $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE, an unprecedented competition to send a robot to the Moon that travels at least 500 meters and transmits video, images, and data back to the Earth.

This group of teams signifies this new era of exploration’s diverse and participatory nature as it includes a huge variety of groups ranging from non-profits to university consortia to billion dollar businesses representing 17 nations on four continents. The global competition, the largest in history, was announced in September 2007, with a winner projected by 2015.

Today’s announcement reveals seven teams that had not been previously announced:

• Mystical Moon of the USA, targeting a global youth audience as active participants in designing their mission;

• Space Il of Israel, aimed to promote scientific awareness among Israeli youth as well as develop the nation’s space industry; Puli of Hungary, composed of young Hungarian professionals and space enthusiasts;

• SpaceMETA of Brazil, a group with experience in creating start-ups in fields like wireless and power line communications and design thinking processes;

• Plan B of Canada, utilizing existing technologies in software, microprocessors, communication, guidance, and robotic systems for their technology;

• Penn State Lunar Lions of the USA, a combination of students and faculty and engineers from the Applied Research Laboratory at the Pennsylvania State University;

• Angelicum Chile of Chile, a mix of students, professionals, and entrepreneurs with engineering backgrounds; Indus of India, led by a serial entrepreneur with more than ten years of experience in developing new businesses; and

• Phoenicia of the USA, a former Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander X CHALLENGE competitor who has worked for a variety of small groups and companies interested in building small launch vehicles.

“The official private race to the Moon is on. What I find amazing is that when we first announced this competition, we thought there might be a dozen groups talented and bold enough to compete,” said Peter Diamandis, Chairman and CEO of the X PRIZE Foundation. “Instead, we have nearly 30 teams of heroic innovators showing us a new way to the Moon.”

The announcement of the official roster of registered teams comes at a time when this new era of lunar exploration has received great recognition and credibility. Recently, NASA, the U.S. civil space agency, announced that it will purchase data related to innovative lunar missions from six Google Lunar X PRIZE teams, with contracts worth as much as $10 million each. These purchases demonstrate how public and private space exploration alike will play an important role in making missions to the Moon financially sustainable.

“Teams have purchased launch vehicles, they are well into their design process, and we have even seen NASA recognize the value of this competition by purchasing data from several competitors,” continued Diamandis. “I want to congratulate the teams that have registered. We are excited to see what they will accomplish in the coming years.”

“From the Wright brothers’ first flight to the Lewis and Clark expedition, the most successful and revolutionary discoveries often come from small, entrepreneurial teams,” said Tiffany V.C. Montague, Manager of Google Space Initiatives. “At Google, we share with this global group of innovators a passion for tackling tough technological and scientific challenges, and we wish them the best of luck as they begin the mission phase.”

Since the competition was first announced, the roster of teams has steadily grown. All of the competing teams have accepted and signed the binding set of rules for the competition.

To learn more about the registered teams, competition details, and other information, visit www.googlelunarxprize.org.

ABOUT THE GOOGLE LUNAR X PRIZE

The $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE is an unprecedented competition to challenge and inspire engineers and entrepreneurs from around the world to develop low-cost methods of robotic space exploration. To win the Google Lunar X PRIZE, a privately-funded team must successfully place a robot on the Moon’s surface that explores at least 500 meters (1/3 of a mile) and transmits high definition video and images back to Earth. The first team to do so will claim a $20 million Grand Prize, while the second team will earn a $5 million Prize. Teams are also eligible to win a $1 million award for stimulating diversity in the field of space exploration and as much as $4 million in bonus prizes for accomplishing additional technical tasks such as moving ten times as far, surviving the frigid lunar night, or visiting the site of a previous lunar mission. To date, more than 20 teams from a dozen countries around the world have registered to compete for the prize. The Google Lunar X PRIZE is available to be claimed until the end of the year 2015. For more information about the Google Lunar X PRIZE, visit http://www.googlelunarxprize.org.

ABOUT THE X PRIZE FOUNDATION

Founded in 1995, the X PRIZE Foundation is the leading nonprofit organization solving the world’s Grand Challenges by creating and managing large-scale, high-profile, incentivized prize competitions that stimulate investment in research and development worth far more than the prize itself. The organization motivates and inspires brilliant innovators from all disciplines to leverage their intellectual and financial capital for the benefit of humanity. The X PRIZE Foundation conducts competitions in four Prize Groups: Education & Global Development; Energy & Environment; Life Sciences; and Exploration (Ocean and Deep Space). Prizes won include the $10 million Ansari X PRIZE for private, suborbital space flight; the $10 million Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE for creating safe, affordable, production-capable vehicles that exceed 100 MPG energy equivalent (MPGe); and the $2 million Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander X CHALLENGE for advanced rocket development. Active prizes include the $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE, the $10 million Archon Genomics X PRIZE, and the $1.4 million Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X CHALLENGE. For more information, visit www.xprize.org.