Friday, June 25, 2010

Who will win the Google Lunar X-Prize?



Nancy Atkinson
Universe Today

Twenty-one teams are hard at work trying to win the Google Lunar X PRIZE, a $30 million international competition to safely land a robot on the surface of the Moon. The GLXP folks released a video this week as an update on how the teams are progressing. The challenge is not only to land a robot on the Moon, but it also must complete a few tasks – and none of this is easy: travel at least 500 meters over the lunar surface, and send images and data back to Earth.

Although the challenge was announced in 2007 and the teams have been working on their respective rovers, no team is a clear-cut favorite in this competition. In fact, some reports say that no one is likely to actually succeed in the task and win the prize money.

But Will Pomerantz, Senior Director of Space Prizes at GLXP begs to differ and told Universe Today that having so many teams in the hunt for the prize makes the competition — and the excitement — even better.
Read the article, HERE.

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