SFS News: Nebula - Google Lunar X Prize Letter of Intent

N-Prize team Nebula have posted an update:



After several months of careful study, Nebula Aerospace are pleased to announce that we have begun the registration process to become a competing team in the Google Lunar X-Prize (GLXP) Challenge.

The Letter of Intent (LoI) gives Nebula a further 90 days to complete its feasibility study and finalise its formal registration, although the process is expected to be complete by December 2008.

About the GLXP

The Google Lunar X PRIZE is a $30 million international competition to safely land a robot on the surface of the Moon, travel 500 meters over the lunar surface, and send images and data back to the Earth. Teams must be at least 90% privately funded and must be registered to compete by December 31, 2010. The first team to land on the Moon and complete the mission objectives will be awarded $20 million; the full first prize is available until December 31, 2012. After that date, the first prize will drop to $15 million. The second team to do so will be awarded $5 million. Another $5 million will awarded in bonus prizes. The final deadline for winning the prize is December 31, 2014.

Please feel free to discuss this topic further...

Does this mean Nebula could be the first team to compete in both competitions? surely two goals would start to cause the team some issues?

Rob

I dunno, you want to send an N-prize tech level to the Moon. Absolutely maximum function out of minimum weight and almost zippo cost.

They should probably be serial developments with the N-prize being first, but if your launcher and software is being developed for the Google Moon prize as a minimum cost/size operation then an N-prize attempt could be a logical spin off.