Ten Teams Registered to Compete for $30 Million Google Lunar X PRIZE

February 21, 2008, Mountain View, CA – The X PRIZE Foundation and Google, Inc. today announced the first ten teams to register for the Google Lunar X PRIZE, a robotic race to the Moon to win a remarkable $30 million in prizes. This international group of teams will compete to land a privately funded robotic craft on the Moon that is capable of roaming the lunar surface for at least 500 meters and sending video, images and data back to the Earth.

Dr. Peter H. Diamandis, Chairman and CEO of the X PRIZE Foundation, announced the teams at Google Headquarters in Mountain View, California. “I’m very pleased to welcome our first 10 fully registered teams to the Google Lunar X PRIZE. Only 6 months after the announcement of this competition, the response has been incredible – we’ve received over 560 expressions of interest from more than 53 nations. By comparison, at the 6 month point of the Ansari X PRIZE we had only 2 teams registered. I think we’re going to see an exciting and very competitive race to the Moon, highlighted by some very creative designs unlike anything we’ve seen come out of the government space programs. Many of these teams represent some of the most creative and entrepreneurial minds in space exploration today. I wish them all the very best of luck. I can’t wait to join with Google in paying the winner,” said Diamandis.

"We are excited that ten teams from around the world have taken up the challenge of the Google Lunar X PRIZE," said Megan Smith, Google's Vice President for New Business Development. "We look forward to the exciting achievements and scientific advancements that will result from the efforts of these teams as they participate in the next great space race."

The ten teams are:

Aeronautics and Cosmonautics Romanian Association (ARCA): Based in Valcea, Romania and led by Dumitru Popescu, ARCA was also a contender in the Ansari X PRIZE. Two of ARCA’s most innovative projects to date have been the Demonstrator 2B rocket and Stabilo, a two-stage manned suborbital air-launched vehicle. The craft they plan to enter in the Google Lunar X PRIZE will be called the “European Lunar Explorer.”

Astrobotic: Team Astrobotic, led by Dr. William “Red” Whittaker, was formed to coordinate the efforts of Carnegie Mellon University, Raytheon Company and additional institutions. One of Carnegie Mellon’s specialties is autonomous navigation through stereo vision and other technologies. This enables Carnegie Mellon’s robots to automatically avoid obstacles and select their own route across unmapped terrain. Astrobotic will compete for the prize using their “Artemis Lander” and “Red Rover.”

Chandah: Chandah, meaning “Moon” in Sanskrit, was founded by Adil Jafry, an energy industry entrepreneur. He is now chairman and CEO of Tara, the largest independent retail electricity provider in Texas. Jafry’s goal is to catalyze commercialization of space, and bring advances in space travel, tourism, sciences, and technology to the general public at large. Team Chandah’s spacecraft will be named “Shehrezade.”

FREDNET: Headed by Fred J. Bourgeois III, this multi-national team is comprised of systems, software, and hardware developers who serve as the leaders and overall coordinators of an international group of Open Source developers, engineers, and scientists. Their goal is to bring the same successful approach used in developing major software systems (such as the Internet, and Linux) to bear on the problems associated with Space Exploration and Research.

LunaTrex: Led by Pete Bitar, LunaTrex is comprised of several individuals, companies, and universities from all over the United States, some of whom were also competitors for the Ansari X PRIZE. Each team member brings their own history to the mix: rocket science, high-altitude near-space R&D, defense directed-energy technology, aviation design and development, robotics, trajectories, and non-conventional propulsion expertise. The name of their competing craft will be “Tumbleweed.”

Micro-Space: Helmed by Richard Speck and based in Colorado, Micro-Space, Inc. has a 31-year history of producing world class, high tech products. Since focusing on the development of spaceflight systems, they have flown 17 innovative, bipropellant liquid fuel rockets, three near-hover rockets with vectored thrust guidance, scores of flights with telemetry and radio tracking, and several innovative life support systems. Micro-Space has been a competitor in the Ansari X PRIZE as well as the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge. Their “Human Lunar Lander” will compete for Google Lunar X PRIZE.

Odyssey Moon: The first team to register for the competition, Odyssey Moon is a private commercial lunar enterprise headquartered in the Isle of Man and founded by Dr. Robert Richards. Odyssey Moon’s business plans are actively in development for a series of missions to the Moon during the International Lunar Decade in support of science, exploration and commerce. Their Google Lunar X PRIZE craft is titled “MoonOne (M-1).”

Quantum3: A U.S.-based team, Quantum3 is led by Paul Carliner, a senior executive in the aerospace industry. They propose to field a small spacecraft launched from an East Coast range using launch-coast-burn trajectory for a propulsive soft landing on the surface of the Moon at the Sea of Tranquility. Quantum3 is taking a partnership approach to the mission, utilizing the unique capabilities of the private sector and academic communities. Their craft will be called “Moondancer.”

Southern California Selene Group: According to team leader Harold Rosen, the approach taken by the Santa Monica Selene Group can be succinctly summarized as “an elegantly simple design that is relatively inexpensive to implement.” The architecture for their “Spirit of Southern California” spacecraft will combine the control and communication systems used in some of the earliest communications satellites with the latest in electronic and sensor technology.

Team Italia: Based in Italy and led by Prof. Amalia Ercoli-Finzi, Team Italia is a collaboration between several universities. The team is currently running a prototype of its system at Politecnico di Milano. The architecture of the robotic system is under study: a single big rover or a colony of many robots, light and mobile, with many legs and wheels, able to be compacted in the lander and distributed quickly on the Moon's surface with cameras and sensory support.

The X PRIZE Foundation has also announced that Space Florida will be a new preferred partner and the first preferred launch site for the $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE competition. Each preferred partner offers additional prizes or strategic services at a discounted rate to all competition teams. As the first preferred launch site, Space Florida will award an additional prize of $2 million to the Grand Prize winner of the Google Lunar X PRIZE competition, provided the winner launched the winning flight from the State of Florida and upon confirmation that the winner has complied with all competition rules. Space Florida was created by the Florida Legislature to sustain Florida's position as the global leader in space exploration and commerce, and is the principal organization charged with promoting and developing Florida's aerospace industry.

ABOUT THE GOOGLE LUNAR X PRIZE
The $30 million prize purse is segmented into a $20 million Grand Prize, a $5 million Second Prize and $5 million in bonus prizes. To win the Grand Prize, a team must successfully soft land a privately funded spacecraft on the Moon, rove on the lunar surface for a minimum of 500 meters, and transmit a specific set of video, images and data back to the Earth. The Grand Prize is $20 million until December 31st 2012; thereafter it will drop to $15 million until December 31st 2014 at which point the competition will be terminated unless extended by Google and the X PRIZE Foundation. For more information about the Google Lunar X PRIZE, please visit www.googlelunarxprize.org.

ABOUT THE X PRIZE FOUNDATION
The X PRIZE Foundation is an educational nonprofit prize institute whose mission is to create radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity. On October 4, 2004, the X PRIZE Foundation captured world headlines when Mojave Aerospace Ventures, led by legendary aircraft designer Burt Rutan and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, built and flew the world’s first private vehicle to space twice in two weeks to win the $10 million Ansari X PRIZE. The X PRIZE Foundation has since launched the $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE and the $10 million Archon X PRIZE for Genomics, and will continue to offer new prizes for breakthroughs in the areas of life improvement, exploration, equity of opportunity and sustainability. The Foundation is widely recognized as the leading model for fostering innovation through competition. For more information, please visit www.xprize.org or email email us.

ABOUT GOOGLE, INC.
Google's innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google's targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit www.google.com.
Google is a trademark of Google Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the companies with which they are associated.

 

New traveling exhibit unveiled with Spirit of Innovation trophy at NASA Headquarters

January 18, 2008, Washington, D.C. – The winners of a national space-oriented high school competition, the Pete Conrad Spirit of Innovation Award, were recognized today in a ceremony at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. To highlight the efforts of the students, the X PRIZE Foundation and NASA unveiled a new exhibit which will travel around the country called Spirit of Innovation. In addition, the X PRIZE Foundation announced that the Conrad Award Scroll, inscribed with the names of the winning team, will be carried to the International Space Station in the fall of 2008 by Richard Garriott.

NASA Deputy Administrator Shana Dale and NASA Innovative Partnerships Program Director Doug Comstock were on hand to honor the winning teams of young people.  The Innovative Partnerships Program, a mission support office at NASA Headquarters that promotes technology partnerships with industry and academia, provided $10,000 in support of the Award, including grant money to the top three teams’ schools. Comstock said, “These students represent the future of space exploration and NASA is proud to recognize and encourage their innovative ideas. We congratulate all the winners of the Conrad Spirit of Innovation Award.”

First-place team “Michael and Talia” from Los Angeles helped unveil the traveling exhibit that features their winning entry. The exhibit also showcases the 2007 competition, which was held at the X PRIZE Cup at Holloman Air Force Base in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Michael Hakimi and Talia Nour-Omid developed an idea for a device that would effectively monitor all of a human being’s vital signs while in space. The winning team received a $5,000 grant for their school and a trophy presented by Nancy Conrad, wife of the late Apollo astronaut Pete Conrad and creator of the prize, and Erik Lindbergh, X PRIZE Foundation Trustee, great-grandson of Charles Lindbergh and designer and sculptor of the First Prize trophy.

Bretton Alexander, X PRIZE Foundation Executive Director of Space Prizes, and Nancy Conrad announced that the Conrad Award Scroll that lists the names of the winning team members will be carried to space by Richard Garriott on his Fall 2008 trip to the International Space Station. Said Conrad, “Pete’s goal was to open space to all travelers. Through the Spirit of Innovation Award, we are bringing space to people before we can bring people to space. We are passing the torch to the next generation of space travelers. Nothing shows that better than Richard carrying the scroll to the Space Station. Richard’s father Owen was an astronaut on Skylab, and now Richard is going up. And we are all connected, because it was Pete’s mission that rescued Skylab and made it possible for Owen to fly.”

Students from the other top two teams also attended the event. Samantha Hopkins represented Team Gad Astro from Northbrook, IL, who won the second place award with their concept of a self-healing material that would rapidly fix any punctures, maintaining safety in space. Christo Magri represented Team Penguin Education from Friendswood, TX, who won third place with their idea for a company that works with private and public schools to provide a high level of space education.

The Pete Conrad Spirit of Innovation Award is a competition for teams of high school students to create a concept to benefit the personal spaceflight industry. Teams submitted graphical representations, technical documents and business plans of concepts. The 10 finalist teams traveled to Alamogordo, New Mexico, to present their business plans to a panel of judges and to the public, who voted on their favorite team.

ABOUT CHARLES “PETE” CONRAD
Charles “Pete” Conrad, Jr. was the third man to walk on the moon and served on Gemini 5 and 11, Apollo 12, and Skylab 2 missions. Conrad was the recipient of the Congressional Space Medal of Honor awarded for his rescue of Skylab. He was posthumously awarded the Ambassador of Exploration Award by NASA in 2006.

ABOUT THE NASA INNOVATIVE PARTNERSHIPS PROGRAM
The Innovative Partnerships Program (IPP) mission is to provide leveraged technology for NASA's Mission Directorates, Programs, and Projects through investments and technology partnerships with industry, academia, government agencies, and national laboratories. Fundamentally, NASA creates new technologies to meet challenging aeronautics and space program goals, and once proven, these technologies often have a multitude of productive uses in society. Making these sometimes surprising connections and transferring NASA’s technologies to the public is an important focus of NASA’s Innovative Partnerships Program. IPP also seeks solutions to some of NASA’s pressing technical challenges by funding Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer projects; seeking cost-shared, technology development partnerships through the IPP Seed Fund; and tapping into new sources of innovation through NASA’s Centennial Challenges prize program. IPP seeks to facilitate and catalyze innovative partnerships in two directions: technology infusion to provide technical solutions to some of the challenges being faced by NASA’s programs and projects; and technology transfer—or spinoffs—to provide solutions to technical challenges in the private sector or other government agencies with NASA- developed technology.

ABOUT THE X PRIZE FOUNDATION
The X PRIZE Foundation is an educational nonprofit prize institute whose mission is to create radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity. On October 4, 2004, the X PRIZE Foundation captured world headlines when Mojave Aerospace Ventures, led by legendary aircraft designer Burt Rutan and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, built and flew the world’s first private vehicle to space twice in two weeks to win the $10 million Ansari X PRIZE. The X PRIZE Foundation has since launched the $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE and the $10 million Archon X PRIZE for Genomics, and will continue to offer new prizes for breakthroughs in the areas of life improvement, exploration, equity of opportunity and sustainability. The Foundation is widely recognized as the leading model for fostering innovation through competition. For more information, please visit www.xprize.org or email us.

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San Jose, CA, December 6th, 2007The first team to complete registration for the $30M Google Lunar X PRIZE unveiled its plans today at the Space Investment Summit in San Jose, California. Representatives of Odyssey Moon announced their plans to make history with the first private robotic mission to the surface of the Moon and their intent to win the Google Lunar X PRIZE competition. Odyssey Moon’s inaugural mission will involve a unique small robotic lander designed to deliver scientific, exploration and commercial payloads to the surface of the Moon.

 

After a weekend of presentations by the 10 finalists of the Pete Conrad Spirit of Innovation Award, and voting by the attendees of the 2007 X PRIZE Cup, Team Michael and Talia was named the First Prize winner. Michael Hakimi and Talia Nour-Omid, students from Los Angeles, came up with an idea for a pair of sunglasses that would effectively monitor all of a human being’s vital signs while in space.

 

Seven seconds prevented Armadillo Aerospace from winning the second year of competition in the two million dollar Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge. Over two days, Armadillo Aerospace attempted four times to achieve the two flights necessary to win the $350,000 Level I competition.

 

The X PRIZE Cup is an annual two-day air and space exposition. The public event is free and will be held on Saturday, Oct. 27th and Sunday, Oct. 28th from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Media and Education Day, open to registered media and students only, will be held on Friday, Oct. 26 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. This year the Cup takes place at Holloman Air Force Base in Alamogordo, N.M. to create the first ever Air & Space Expo with “live” fire / fly demonstrations and competitions.

Friday, Oct. 26: Media Day Press Conference Schedule
**Media are encouraged to arrive on base by 10:30 a.m.**
11:00 a.m.: Welcome by Brigadier General David Goldfein, Commander of the 49th Test Squadron
11:10 a.m.: Remarks and Q&A with the teams competing in the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge
11:40 a.m.: Announcement by Teachers in Space Project
12:00 p.m.: Announcement by Rocketplane Global and Launch Magazine
12:20 p.m.: Announcement by Rocket Racing League
12:45 p.m.: Photo opps on the flightline with Rocket Racing League and incoming planes

Friday, Oct. 26: Education Day Highlights
(Happening continuously from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m.)
• 5th grade model rocket fly-off
• 6th grade balloon rocket race
• 7th grade EGGS Prize
• 8th grade Lego Climber
• Displays by the Pete Conrad Spirit of Innovation Award Finalists
• Astronaut talks

Sat. & Sun., October 27 & 28: X PRIZE Cup and Holloman Air & Space Expo Highlights
• Free and open to the public – Gates open at 8 a.m.
• Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge (NG-LLC) flights
• High-powered amateur rocket launches
• German Air Force Tornado tactical demonstration
• F-22 Raptor flyover
• Opening Ceremonies at noon
o Saturday: The Honorable Marion C. Blakey, FAA Administrator, to be recognized
o Sunday: Awards given out to students competing for the Pete Conrad Spirit of Innovation Award, NG-LLC winners
• Wings of Blue Skydiving Team
• CV-22 Para-rescue demonstration
• F-117 Nighthawk tactical demonstration
• Red Bull MIG-17 helicopter
• F-16 Viper demonstration

For media registration, please email us with your name, organization,
contact info and nationality (Air Force requirements).

ABOUT THE X PRIZE CUP AND HOLLOMAN AIR & SPACE EXPO
The X PRIZE Cup is the result of a partnership between the X PRIZE Foundation and the State of New Mexico to build the world's first true rocket festival. For 2007, the X PRIZE Cup and Holloman Air Force Base have teamed up to produce an action-packed Air & Space Expo. For more information, please visit www.xprizecup.com or call (310) 576-3473.

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The ten finalists for the inaugural Pete Conrad Spirit of Innovation Award will have their ideas on display at the 2007 X PRIZE Cup. Teams of high school students from all over the United States proposed ideas that could accelerate the personal spaceflight industry.

 

The six judges from last year’s challenge, with more than 200 years of space experience between them, will again be overseeing the competition. They will be deciding a winner of the competition and other elements of the $2 million prize.

 

The 2007 Wirefly X PRIZE Cup is the first ever Air & Space Expo with “live” fire / fly demonstrations and competitions. The X PRIZE Foundation and Holloman Air Force Base have teamed up for this historic event -- not a moment will go by where an airplane or rocket is not taking off or landing.

SANTA MONICA, Calif., September 13, 2007 – The X PRIZE Foundation and Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced the Google Lunar X PRIZE, a robotic race to the Moon to win a remarkable $30 million prize purse. Private companies from around the world will compete to land a privately funded robotic rover on the Moon that is capable of completing several mission objectives, including roaming the lunar surface for at least 500 meters and sending video, images and data back to the Earth.