Google Lunar X Prize Options

[Phil Stooke]

Astrobotic have now released a list of future missions they are planning to fly, with the Google Lunar X Prize only the first. The list is here:

http://astrobotictechnology.com/

(lower left box on that page).

They are the team with the earliest projected launch date, May 2010. Odyssey Moon are another very promising team, but their planned first launch is in 2011. They also plan further missions including one to the south pole. I still expect that raising money will be the biggest problem. It's also quite possible that early missions will experience failures, so the ability to continue after a failure is another prerequisite for success.

Phil

[mcaplinger]

I still expect that raising money will be the biggest problem.

So much so that it would frankly amaze me if any of these teams fly any hardware of any kind, ever.

[Phil Stooke]

And here.....

http://www.livescience.com/blogs/author/leonarddavid/

... (Oct. 30 blog) is a story about Odyssey Moon making all the right connections for its lander development work.


There are only a few teams who can be said to have a chance at this competition, and these two are the frontrunners by any reasonable criteria. There are other serious teams, but they have a lot to do to catch up. And then there are the teams who are too far behind to have a chance. They will either drop out, probably fairly soon, or join other teams to combine their expertise. That's my take, anyway, and I'm following this very closely.

Mike - you're right to be skeptical, as we have seen other companies like Applied Space Resources (anyone remember them? I had dinner with them once in Houston) and Transorbital start a lunar project and then fail for lack of money. The thing that's different now is the new opportunities to cooperate with NASA, such as Discovery Missions of Opportunity funding, and more interest in purchasing services along the lines of COTS. I believe there's a chance that this can work, though I suspect the six missions Astrobotic are outlining may be rather too optimistic.

Phil

[mcaplinger]

The thing that's different now is the new opportunities to cooperate with NASA, such as Discovery Missions of Opportunity funding, and more interest in purchasing services along the lines of COTS.

The Discovery MOO seems like a stretch, as the program is really designed to fly on missions that would exist for some other reason: funding a mission by flying a MOO on it is sort of the tail wagging the dog. And NASA's interest in COTS is rather notoriously fickle. This, and the fact that the X PRIZE Foundation retains media rights for all of the data obtained in order to win the prize, makes things pretty tough (admittedly you can have separate data/instrumentation, but that just makes things that much harder.)

That said, Phil, I have to admire your optimism for assigning any credibility to GLXP at all.

[Phil Stooke]

I fully appreciate the funding difficulties! I have seen plans like this come and go over the last decade, and been associated with one or two of them in a minor way. I accept that one possible outcome of the GLXP will be that no flight will ever occur, but I think the situation is more positive now than it was a decade ago for Applied Space Resources, Transorbital, IdeaLab and Lunarcorp. So we'll see. Personally, I do expect a few attempts on the prize. It is less clear to me that the sustained program promoted by Astrobotic can succeed. But it is an interesting story, and I am documenting it carefully.

Phil

[mcaplinger]

Knowing several people who worked for BlastOff! ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlastOff!_Corporation ) I'll believe it when I see it.

[Phil Stooke]

Quite - I wouldn't have invested in that!

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/lunar/tea...ence-instrument

Odyssey Moon gets another customer.

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

I'm still following the GLXP news... and here's some information about Astrobotic's plans. Last year they announced a series of six missions. Now there is a revised list. Here's a link:

http://astrobotictechnology.com/wp-content...nd-services.pdf

The changes to note are that (1) all missions are delayed about 6 months (first three) or a year (last three), and (2) the 4th mission was to be a seismic node for the International Lunar Network, but it's now replaced with a Lava Tube Explorer. That's assuming they can find an entrance to a lava tube, something which is not yet known to exist.

Raising money for this endeavour is harder than building a moon lander! - and the current economic situation isn't helping, obviously. (thinks - will the deadline be extended?)

Phil

[NMRguy]

For those interested, Spaceflight Now has an update on the Odyssey Moon project:

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0908/12beagle/

[Phil Stooke]

In case anyone is following the Google Lunar X Prize... the loonytune element has finally exhausted the patience of site moderators, and the GLXP forum has been locked (Thanks for nothing, Sock Puppet!). Meanwhile the number of registered teams has risen to 21 (plus two withdrawn teams), a Romanian team is getting ready to launch an experimental rocket very soon, and the teams I consider the front runners are letting their launch dates slip, presumably due to difficulty raising funds. That of course has been a perennial problem for commercial lunar missions.

Phil

[stevesliva]

In case anyone is following the Google Lunar X Prize... the loonytune element has finally exhausted the patience of site moderators

And the etymology of the word Loony is appropriate once again.

[Phil Stooke]

Astrobotic offers to fly your experiment... (for a price)

http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/lunar/tea...s-now-available

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

Numerous developments in the Google Lunar X Prize in the last few months. Most important perhaps is the new set of NASA contracts for technical information (precision landing, lunar night survivability and so on), for six teams. I've been collecting information on landing sites, so here's an updated map of announced sites. Frednet might go to any of the five sites with laser reflectors, though I've only noted them at Apollo 11. STELLAR also has considered other sites. If anyone knows of other sites I could add to this I would be grateful for the information.

Phil

[nprev]

Thanks for the update, Phil; was wondering what the latest & greatest was with GXP.