This article is more than 1 year old

Moon miners book Kiwi rockets for 2017 lunar landing

$30m Google Lunar X-Prize now in play

Moon Express, one of the teams competing for the $30m Google Lunar X-Prize, has booked five rockets that will be ready for a 2017 attempt to get to the Moon.

The deal with New Zealand firm Rocket Labs will see Moon Express' MX-1 lander make an attempt at the first commercial lunar landing for the Google Lunar X-Prize. To win the cash, the lander will have to travel at least 500 meters across the Moon's surface and send back high-definition video of the feat.

"The holy grail of our company is to provide, to prove, a full-services capability – not just landing, but coming back from the moon," Moon Express CEO Bob Richards, told Space.com.

"We're going to be inspired to try a sample-return. I don't know if we'll do that on the second mission, but I sure hope we're trying it by the third mission, if all is going that well."

Although there are 16 teams currently in the running for the X-Prize, Moon Ventures is one of the front runners, and the company has big plans for the Moon. The company wants to become the first extraterrestrial mining company and harvest platinum group metals, rare earth elements, and Helium 3 from what it calls the "eighth continent."

That's not going to be possible with the MX-1; it's a lightweight test platform. The coffee table-sized spaceship will be boosted into orbit by the Rocket Labs delivery vehicle. It will then use hydrogen peroxide fuel to make it to the Moon and land safely.

Moon Express calls the probe the "iPhone of space," and they say it could be used to launch cubesats into specific orbital planes, refuel larger satellites from its storage tanks, or be used to clear up the ever-increasing amount of space junk cluttering up our skies.

But Moon Express may still be beaten to the punch. Another team, Astrobotic, says it should be ready to make an attempt at a Moon landing in 2016, and has booked a place on Elon Musk's Falcon 9 rocket already.

The Falcon 9 rocket is grounded at the moment, following an explosive failure mid-flight in June. SpaceX, designer and manufacturer of the rocket, is currently testing an upgrade for the Falcon 9 and thinks it has worked out what the problem is. But the firm is holding fire on new launches until it's sure the rocket is safe. ®

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like