$30 million Google Lunar XPRIZE dream ends for India’s Team Indus

NEWDELHI: No team competing in the Google Lunar X PRIZE challenge will make a launch attempt to reach the moon by March 31, organisers said this week, in a development that leaves the $30 million prize unclaimed.

There were 5 contenders for the Google Lunar XPRIZE prize: SPACEIL from Israel, Moon Express from USA, Synergy Moon, an international team, Hakuto from Japan and Team Indus from India.

The Google Lunar X challenge aimed at placing a rover on the moon’s surface and taking high definition images. The launch was scheduled for December 2017 but was postponed to March.

“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,” the X-prize organisers said in a release.

Team Indus is India’s first privately funded start-up and if its moon mission is successful it will become the first private Indian startup to land a craft on the moon. The contract was signed with ISRO’s commercial arm, Antrix Corporation Limited, to launch the indigenously developed and privately-funded lunar rover onboard ISRO’s PSLV launch vehicle. The contract was cancelled in December because of financial issues, according to ISRO officials.