Two New Teams Join Google Lunar X Prize (News)

The X Prize Foundation has announced that two additional teams have joined the quest for the Google Lunar X Prize:

• Independence-X Aerospace, a Malaysia-based team with a goal to "Transform Malaysia into a developed space country by the year 2020", and
• Omega Envoy, the effort of the Florida-based not-for-profit Earthrise Space, Inc., founded by a group of students and professionals to help reestablish Florida's status as a space hub.

Both teams express simplicity as a key of their efforts to get a Mooncast and the other objectives completed.

It'll be fun to watch this X Prize ramp up in the next couple of years, as it could be remembered as something of a 'Shot Heard 'Round the World' for Lunar integration (perhaps that panoramic view in the requirements could be 'The Shot Seen 'Round the World'? :) ).

Picture of the Week: Moon Princess

That is an official JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) rendering of their lunar orbiter Kaguya (formerly SELENE; the new name is derived from the name of a lunar princess in the oldest surviving piece of Japanese fiction, The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter), which completed much of its operations (namely visual documentation, including amazing HD video of Luna's surface, which can be viewed here) in 2007.

A main facet of the Google Lunar X Prize's award conditions is the completion of a 'Mooncast', including HD video, from the surface of the moon, representing something of a next step forward from what JAXA's Kaguya carried forward from Apollo.

For a remarkably thorough and neat examination of the Kaguya craft itself, see this Discovery Channel profile on it.

Picture of the Week: Fetch, Rover

In a little toss to WALL-E's opening this past week, the Picture of the Week is a mock-up of what a Google Lunar X Prize rover might end up looking like (EDIT: See comments for the full skinny, but the good folks at Odyssey Moon Ltd. note this is an actual prototype, with the photo being from their media conference about being named the first Lunar X prize team. Thank you Mr. Richards for the comment and the further details :) ). Such a rover would have to be capable of completing a 'Mooncast', consisting of 360º photos, both HD and near-real time video, and transmission of specific data in order for the competing group to earn the $20 million prize. Additional $5 million prizes can be earned by coming in second and/or completing additional challenges, such as roving certain distances and surviving a frigid lunar night.

I personally find the giant model of the moon there to left of it almost as exciting as anything else. Put me in the same room as that thing, and I'd be all over it.

Picture of the Week: Who Needs Video

The above is an animated GIF from NASA'a Phoenix Lander, brought to you from the lovely locale of Mars. A robotic arm deploying may not always the most exciting thing in the world--or, err, solar system?--, but coming straight from another planet, it's pretty neat. (For a bunch more images from the lander, see here).

Part of the Google Lunar X Prize requirements for a qualifying victory are to send back images and data (including HD video) from the Moon; what they call a "Mooncast".

"MOONCAST: The Mooncast consists of digital data that must be collected and transmitted to the Earth composed of the following:
• High resolution 360º panoramic photographs taken on the surface of the Moon;
• Self portraits of the rover taken on the surface of the Moon;
• Near-real time videos showing the craft’s journey along the lunar surface;
• High Definition (HD) video;
• Transmission of a cached set of data, loaded on the craft before launch (e.g. first email from the Moon).
Teams will be required to send a Mooncast detailing their arrival on the lunar surface, and a second Mooncast that provides imagery and video of their journey roaming the lunar surface. All told, the Mooncasts will represent approximately a Gigabyte of stunning content returned to the Earth."

I note that they actually require a self-portrait of the rover in all of that. So, little things like that GIF above are going to be big things for many folks in the coming years :)