24.01.2018
From left, Robert K. Weiss, now vice chairman of the X Prize Foundation, Larry Page, founder of Google, Peter Diamandis, now the executive chairman of X Prize and the astronaut Buzz Aldrin, at an announcement for the Lunar X Prize competition in Los Angeles in 2007. A decade later, the organizers have announced that no one will receive the $20 million prize money.
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The Google Lunar X Prize competition, which has spent the past decade dangling a $20 million prize for the first privately financed venture to make it to the moon, came to a quiet end on Tuesday. Not with the ka-boom of a rocket launch or a winner beaming photos back from the lunar surface, but with a tweet and a statement.
The organizers at the X Prize Foundation conceded that none of the five remaining entrants have a chance of getting off the ground by the deadline at the end of March.
The competition, financed by Google and announced with much fanfare in 2007, was a follow-on to the first X Prize competition, for the first privately-financed spacecraft to make it to space. That was won by the SpaceShipOne vehicle designed by Burt Rutan and financed by billionaire Paul G. Allen.
Although they were disappointed to not have a winner, the organizers maintained that the competition was a success.
“As a result of this competition, we have sparked the conversation and changed expectations with regard to who can land on the moon. Many now believe it’s no longer the sole purview of a few government agencies, but now may be achieved by small teams of entrepreneurs, engineers, and innovators from around the world,” said a statement from Peter H. Diamandis, the foundation’s founder and executive chairman, and Marcus Shingles, the chief executive.
The foundation raised the possibility of a new sponsor or continuing the competition without any cash prizes.
The competition started with more than 25 teams. The five remaining in the end were Moon Express, based in Cape Canaveral, Fla., SpaceIL in Israel, TeamIndus in India, Hakuto in Japan and Synergy Moon, an international collaboration.
At the end of last year, SpaceIL and TeamIndus both came up short in trying to raise needed financing. The parent company of the Hakuto team had the money — in December, it announced it had obtained $90 million in investment — but it was counting on piggybacking on TeamIndus’s lander to get to the moon. Moon Express also has the money it needs, but it has yet to have the ribbon-cutting on the new facility where it will assemble its lander. Synergy Moon has said little about its progress.
When the competition was first announced, the deadline for launching was the end of 2014. It was then extended several times, to 2015, then 2016 and again to 2017.
Meanwhile, China accomplished what the X Prize teams could not. It landed its Chang’e 3 spacecraft on the moon in 2013. China and India are both planning to land robotic missions on the moon this year.
Last August, the foundation announced one last change, giving the winning team until the end of March to complete the mission. This time, Google insisted that there would no additional extensions.
Bob Richards, the chief executive of Moon Express, paid tribute to the prize, even though it was never awarded. “The existence of the prize has been and will continue to be, an important part of the history of humanity’s permanent return to the moon,” he wrote in an opinion piece in the current issue of Space News.
But he has also said that winning the prize was not an essential aspect of his company’s business plan, which is to provide recurring transportation for payloads to the moon.
SpaceIL, TeamIndus and Hakuto all said they are continuing their efforts to send their spacecraft to the moon.
Two X Prize teams that dropped out earlier, Astrobotic Technology of Pittsburgh and PTScientists, based in Berlin, are also continuing development of their moon vehicles.
Quelle: The New York Times
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“After close consultation with our five finalist Google Lunar XPRIZE teams over the past several months, we have concluded that no team will make a launch attempt to reach the Moon by the March 31st, 2018 deadline. This literal “moonshot” is hard, and while we did expect a winner by now, due to the difficulties of fundraising, technical and regulatory challenges, the grand prize of the $30M Google Lunar XPRIZE will go unclaimed.
We are extraordinarily grateful to Google for enabling this 10-year journey with us and for having the foresight and courage to support and catalyze the commercial space industry, which was the ultimate goal of this competition.
As a result of this competition, we have sparked the conversation and changed expectations with regard to who can land on the Moon. Many now believe it’s no longer the sole purview of a few government agencies, but now may be achieved by small teams of entrepreneurs, engineers, and innovators from around the world. We are thankful to the teams for their decade of hard work, and acknowledge that a number of our teams are now, finally building flight ready hardware, contracting with launch providers and are close to being able to make their attempt to land on the Moon.
XPRIZE is exploring a number of ways to proceed from here. This may include finding a new title sponsor to provide a prize purse following in the footsteps of Google’s generosity, or continuing the Lunar XPRIZE as a non-cash competition where we will follow and promote the teams and help celebrate their achievements.
Even though we are disappointed that we do not have a winner at this time, we are proud of the impact that the Google Lunar XPRIZE has achieved to date. Over the course of this competition:
- Teams and the companies that own the teams have raised more than $300 million through corporate sponsorships, government contracts and venture capital, including the largest space-related series A investment of $90 million;
- Hundreds of jobs were created and the first commercial space companies were established in India, Malaysia, Israel and Hungary;
- Through educational programs, we have engaged hundreds of thousands of young people across the globe, sparking an interest in exploration and STEM fields;
- We have also seen regulatory reform: one team received the first-ever ‘Mission Approval’ from the U.S. government to send a private spacecraft beyond Earth’s orbit and to the Moon in their quest to complete their first lunar mission;
- We have already awarded more than $6 million in prize money to teams over the course of the competition, in recognition of the milestones they have accomplished; and,
- Finally, we have secured global media exposure for our teams, including a recent 32-page feature in National Geographic, a segment on The Today Show, and a 9-part web series, Moon Shot, executive produced by J.J. Abrams, inspiring millions of people around the world with the story of the Google Lunar XPRIZE.
In conclusion, it’s incredibly difficult to land on the Moon. If every XPRIZE competition we launch has a winner, we are not being audacious enough, and we will continue to launch competitions that are literal or figurative moonshots, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. We are inspired by the progress of the Google Lunar XPRIZE teams, and will continue to support their journey, one way or another, and will be there to help shine the spotlight on them when they achieve that momentous goal.”
Peter H. Diamandis, Founder & Executive Chairman, XPRIZE &
Marcus Shingles, Chief Executive Officer, XPRIZE
Quelle: XPRIZE