SpaeCor News

Its been a while since I’ve last given an update on this exciting space race so I thought it was about time to revisit the Subject.  The Google Lunar Lander Challenge is now officially underway.  The year 2010 was the market for the beginning of the challenge period, so any team has the opportunity to win as early as Tomorrow!  Although we would probably know about any attempts weeks ahead of time.  The teams now have 2 years in order to grab the full 20 million dollar first prize, after that the prize will drop incrementally, The final deadline being the year 2014.   The full list of teams that are competing is available on the Space companies page.

The secrecy of the different teams has tightened up since the competition has officially gotten underway.  The lunar X prize forums have also been shut down, because of so called in adequate ability to manage the forum,  thus most chatter has been cut to a minimum since the start of 2010.   A few teams still stand out as the best possible teams for achieving the challenge in the near future.  These teams include:  Odyssey Moon, Astrobotic, ARCA, and Frednet.   Currently the main challenge for the rest of the teams that sets them behind these ones is launch capabilities.  For Example Odyssey Moon, works closely with NASA and has the intellectual know how working for them.  ARCA has developed a balloon launching system that seems promising,  And the Frednet and Astrobotic,  either have large pocket books or the ability to Raise the funds for a ride on SpaceX’s Commercially driven Launch Systems.