spacetoday.net: Google to sponsor lunar lander prize

Posted: Thu, Sep 13, 2007, 6:58 PM ET (2258 GMT)
Google Lunar X Prize logo

Internet search engine company Google has agreed to sponsor $30 million in prizes for the first privately-developed lunar rovers. The Google Lunar X Prize competition, announced Thursday in Los Angeles, will award $20 million to the first private spacecraft to soft-land on the Moon, rove at least 500 meters, and return a series of high-resolution panoramic images and videos. A $5-million prize will go to the second company to achieve the feat, with the remaining $5 million set aside for bonus prizes, such as discovering water ice. The prize competition will be run by the X Prize Foundation, which ran the $10-million Ansari X Prize competition for privately developed manned suborbital spacecraft. The prize expires at the end of 2014. A group at Carnegie Mellon University has already announced its intent to compete for the prize.