X-Prize Lunar Lander Teams

[Tuckerfan]

Interesting list.

The X Prize Foundation announced Thursday the name of eight of the nine competitors in this year’s Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge to be held this October during the Wirefly X Prize Cup and Holloman Air and Space Expo.

The number of teams competing for the $2 million purse increased from four teams to nine. Sponsored by NASA’s Centennial Challenges Program, the event is designed to accelerate commercial development of technology that can ferry cargo and humans between the Moon’s surface and lunar orbit.

Interestingly enough, Scaled Composites (Burt Rutan’s company) is not on the list of announced teams.

[Amblydoper]

Cool.
When I first saw this post, I thought the prize would go to the first team to actually land on the moon and safely return… and I thought the $2 million prize was a bit stingy for a feat of that magnitude.

As I see, the challenge is a little more down to earth. Still, I will be interested in following this all the same.