Wednesday, September 26, 2018

SpaceX To Deliver Robots To The Moon

Hawthorne, California-based SpaceX has just signed a deal to deliver two robot payloads to the moon for a small Japanese company, ispace, ispace said this morning. According to ispace, it has signed a contract with SpaceX for two flights to land two lunar orbiters on the moon. ispace is leveraging technology developed by one of the teams in the Lunar XPRIZE, run by Marina Del Rey-based XPRIZE Foundation, in what had been an attempt to win cash prize money offered by XPRIZE for landing a mission on the moon this year. That effort expired in March. According to ispace, it is using the technology developed by the HAKUTO team for its new effort, called HAKUTO-R. The original Lunar XPRIZE competition had been backed by Google as the Google Lunar XPRIZE; the XPRIZE Foundation is now seeking a new title sponsor to re-launch the Lunar XPRIZE effort. The XPRIZE Foundation says at least five of the teams previously involved in the Google Lunar XPRIZE have solidified launch contracts and are hoping to land on the surface of the Moon within the next two years.

---