Updates Google Lunar X-Prize Updates

[Chipstone306]

This will be getting interesting i think
anyone want to compete?

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/space/06/20/google.lunar.xprize/index.html

 

[ar81]

Sending an email to moon could work? :-D

 

[Whatu]

More like sending it from the moon

 

[Danny Ramone]

Sending data from the moon is not as easy as it sounds. Due to the distances involved a lower frequency has to be used in order to use less power(Well thats the way it works on earth) The lower frequency means less bandwidth. Hence more time to transmit the data. Which means more repetitions when packets get lost due to radiation etc. Added to this standard TCP cannot be used due to the latency. Something like STANAG 5066 protocol would be needed.


BTW I would love to compete, but i dont think there is much call for military network engineers in a project like this. (plus whos going to give me money)

Maybe the orbiter community could put in a virtual entry to at least test concepts

 

[tblaxland]

Sending data from the moon is not as easy as it sounds. Due to the distances involved a lower frequency has to be used in order to use less power(Well thats the way it works on earth) The lower frequency means less bandwidth.

Not as easy as it sounds but it has certainly been proven to be doable, and at very high frequencies. A couple of examples:

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter - 6Mb/s over X band (8GHz)
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter - 100-300Mb/s over Ka band (32GHz)

Also, the now cancelled Mars Telecommunications Orbiter was planned to test laser communication with Earth at up to 30Mb/s.

 

[Danny Ramone]

have you got any links to technical details? I would be very interested in having a look. Laser would be the way to go but it would have to be very precise in its direction.

 

[tblaxland]

have you got any links to technical details?

No, I got the above examples from Google and Wikipedia.

 

[davewave]

Very interesting read.

I suppose the closest we could come to something like this competition would be the following:

1) You must create a realistic craft (ie. NOT DELTAGLIDER), which is self propelled, self guided and goes all the way from the earth to the moon.
2) You create this using addon.dll's etc including meshes and textures.
3) Judgement is based not only upon the craft succesfully landing on the moon but also ensuring that the developer hasn't cheated by allowing a 20kg rocket engine to output say 100KN.
4) Applicants submit their addons to three addon judges who all run the mods separatly using a fresh install of the latest orbiter.
5) In the case of a tie, who ever gets to the moon first and accomplishes the goal wins.
6) In a case of a tie again, who ever uses less fuel wins.

but then again, seeing as we have AMSO which is almost fully automated, it may be hard so I suppose you need to judge the scale. Whoever designs the smallest ship to go to the moon wins.

any takers?
I think we should have some official competitions for orbiter like docking with ISS with minimum fuel, etc..

To ensure that participants aren't cheating, you need to install one of the mods which does a dump of your whole flight log and you also need to provide visual proof using a recording or something like that.

 

[Danny Ramone]

thats kinda what I had in mind as well though i wouldnt know where to begin

 

[tblaxland]

Google Lunar X PRIZE Announces Official Roster of Teams

X Prize Foundation: Google Lunar X PRIZE Announces Official Roster of Teams Competing in the $30 Million Race to the Moon

PLAYA VISTA, CA (February 17, 2011) – Today, the X PRIZE Foundation announced the official roster of 29 registered teams competing for the $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE, an unprecedented competition to send a robot to the Moon that travels at least 500 meters and transmit video, images, and data back to the Earth. This group of teams signifies this new era of exploration’s diverse and participatory nature as it includes a huge variety of groups ranging from non-profits to university consortia to billion dollar businesses representing 17 nations on four continents. The global competition, the largest in history, was announced in September 2007, with a winner projected by 2015.

Here is the official roster of participants

1) Odyssey Moon, Isle of Man
2) Astrobotic, USA
3) Team Italia, Italy
4) Next Giant Leap, USA
5) Team FREDNET, USA
6) ARCA, Romania
7) Moon Express, USA
8) STELLAR, USA
9) JURBAN, USA
10) Independence-X, Malaysia
11) Omega Envoy, USA
12) Synergy Moon, USA
13) EuroLuna, Denmark
14) SELENE, China
15) White Label Space, Netherlands
16) Part-Time Scientists, Germany
17) C-Base Open Moon, Germany
18) Selenokhod, Russia
19) Barcelona Moon Team, Spain
20) Mystical Moon, USA
21) Rocket City Space Pioneers, USA
22) Space IL, Israel
23) Puli, Hungary
24) SpaceMETA, Brazil
25) Plan B, Canada
26) Penn State Lunar Lion, USA
27) Angelicum Chile, Chile
28) Indus, India
29) Phoenicia, USA

Today’s announcement reveals seven teams that had not been previously announced.

Read more...

 

[RGClark]

Among the Google X-prize entrants, Astrobotic will attempt a landing in a permanently shadowed crater. This could be potentially very important because LCROSS measurements suggest valuable minerals as well as high water content there.

Bob Clark

 

[kamaz]

Interview with Astrobotic CEO

LV from SpaceX, lander from Masten, although with their own guidance system. Flight Oct. 2015. Target:

Where do you plan to land on the Moon?

Lacus Mortis, which is the “Lake of Death.” There’s a pit there and it’s the only one known that has a collapsed wall ramp that you can potentially drive down and potentially get inside of the cave.

Why visit a cave?

We see that there’s a huge potential at these caves and pits for future human use. The only way we’re going to go and do that is if we go up-close and discover it and explore it and see what it’s about, see if you can get inside. I think robots are going to do that first, and it just makes sense to go there first.

There are some payloads that have interest in the caves, and potentially going in and exploring, but I’ll let those groups talk about that when we make those deals public.

The cave from LRO:

And this part is interesting:

You’ve already announced several commercial customers that will be flying on your first mission. Are you also planning to fly other X Prize contenders?

We have agreements with other teams where we will land on the surface, deploy all the rovers and then at one point we’ll raise the green flag and everyone will drive 500 meters as fast as they can. Whoever wins, wins the glory of the prize.

There is a second prize to the X Prize, and there are also some prizes that you can’t win if you only have just two teams. There are milestone prizes, for example, that you can add to the pot, so flying more teams actually enables all the teams to be successful together.

So it’s possible that you wouldn’t win first prize even though you got everybody there.

Our goal is to fly payloads to the surface of the Moon, regularly and continuously into the future. The first mission is just a sample of that. Our business model does not depend on winning the prize. Bringing other teams with us is a big part of what we’re doing. I actually think it’s going to be exponentially more exciting every time we add another team, especially if it’s from another nation because then you’ve got nations from around the world that are watching live, real-time from the Moon as the excitement is unfolding.

Apparently, there is market for landing stuff on the Moon... very interesting.

 

[Soheil_Esy]

Is the Google Lunar Prize dead ?

The closing date for the competition was originally announced to be Dec 31, 2012 for the 'Grand Prize' of $20M and 2014 for the reduced prize of $15M. In 2010 the closing date was extended to Dec 31, 2015.

In February 2015, Astrobotic announced a partnership with Hakuto for an arrangement to share the SpaceX launch and the Astrobotic Griffin lander for the X-prize competition, and they are currently the only GLXP teams to have a confirmed launch reservation as of March 2015, 22 months prior to prize expiration.

The prize expires at the end of 2016 and launch service providers typically require launch vehicle reservation 24 months prior to the date of the launch.

 

[dman]

Japanes company to launch sports drink to moon

Japanese pharmaceutical company Otsuka, maker of Pocari sweat sports
drink is planning to land some of its product on the moon. A capsule
with titanium plaques with messages from around the world containing
a serving of powdered Pocari Sweat will be onboard an Astrobotics lander.

The lander will also have onboard 2 robotic rover vehicles competing for the
$20 million Google Lunar X prize. The rovers. to claim the prize, must travel at least 500 meters and send back high resolution video.

It is scheduled to launch on a Falcon 9 in October 2016.

http://www.space.com/30333-moon-billboard-pocari-sweat-sports-drink.html

One question : What is Falcon 9 upper stage for the TLI (Trans Lunar insertion)?

 

[ISProgram]

One question : What is Falcon 9 upper stage for the TLI (Trans Lunar insertion)?

There isn't a definite value b/c SpaceX has refrained from actually listing said value. All that can be inferred is that it is more than ~570 kg.

 

[Soheil_Esy]

Japanese pharmaceutical company Otsuka, maker of Pocari sweat sports
drink is planning to land some of its product on the moon. A capsule
with titanium plaques with messages from around the world containing
a serving of powdered Pocari Sweat will be onboard an Astrobotics lander.

The lander will also have onboard 2 robotic rover vehicles competing for the
$20 million Google Lunar X prize. The rovers. to claim the prize, must travel at least 500 meters and send back high resolution video.

It is scheduled to launch on a Falcon 9 in October 2016.

Nippons are already living on the Moon::rofl:

9個セット（太陽、8惑星）　￥4,000（￥4,320）

8個セット ￥3,360（￥3,629）

各1個 ￥420（￥454）

http://www.rihga.co.jp/osaka/leclat/index.html

Sweet Planets

Taken by Shiraishi on August 31, 2015 @ Kumagaya-shi, Saitama, Japan

Details:
These are sweet planets, 8 beautiful marbled bon-bon chocolats, named as from Mercury to Neptune, which were given on my birthday!

Earth is a very nice blue marble.

These tiny planets are observable (can be purchased) at Chocolat Boutique Leclat in Japan...

http://spaceweathergallery.com/indi...d=117021&PHPSESSID=ikbamdok3a9d5rgbhn7h08n2l2

9th Bonus planet: thirst-quenching Water World!

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/station/crew-20/ndxpage28.html

 

[Soheil_Esy]

Is the Google Lunar Prize dead ?

Unlike the fallacious "Cryonics" pipe dream, there is at least one industry that can really achieve last-ditch attempt miraculous resuscitations, even after more than a decade later, and that one is nothing less than Google with its Lunar X Prize! :rofl:

Google Lunar X Prize - Wikipedia

The Google Lunar XPRIZE was announced at the Wired Nextfest on 13 September 2007.

In 2015, XPRIZE announced that the competition deadline would be extended to December 2017 if at least one team could secure a verified launch contract by 31 December 2015. Two teams secured such a launch contract, and the deadline was extended.

ISRO to launch world’s first rocket with 3 rovers to moon in 2017

Dec 24, 2016, 07.32 AM IST

MUMBAI: When ISRO's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle-Xl (PSLV-X1) lifts off around December 28, 2017, with India's first private mission to the moon by Team Indus, it promises to be one for the history books.

The reason? It is for the first time in the history of space exploration that a rocket will be flying three rovers. Of the three rovers in this private moon mission, two are from Japan and one belongs to Team Indus.


The PSLV-XL launched 20 satellites in one 'go' on June 22, 2016. But this is the first time that it will demonstrate its capability of carrying three rovers placed inside a lander. "This will go a long way in further enhancing the confidence of the global community in the PSLV," said an Isro official. Again around January 27, 2017, the powerful rocket will launch 83 satellites in a single mission.


According to the organisers of the global lunar competition, Google Lunar X Prize, "the Japanese Team, Hakuto, is facing the challenges with its unique dual rover system consisting of the two-wheeled 'Tetris,' and the four-wheeled 'Moonraker', which are linked by a tether". The organisers added that while Tetris will explore holes thought to be caves in the moon, Moonraker will capture 360-degree images.


Team Indus's new-look sleek rover is solar-powered and the mission duration is one lunar day-- equivalent to 14 earth days. The Team Indus lander can carry up to 20kg of payload.

https://team-hakuto.jp/img/technology/fm-1.jpg
https://team-hakuto.jp/technology/index.html



http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...vers-to-moon-in-2017/articleshow/56149648.cms

 

[RGClark]

The leading entrant Astrobotic has pulled out of the competition:

Graduating from the Google Lunar X Prize
John Thornton Commentary, December 19, 2016
http://www.spacenewsmag.com/commentary/graduating-from-the-google-lunar-x-prize/

Though at least four teams remain:

Google Lunar X Prize teams await word of their fate by Jeff Foust — December 30, 2016
http://spacenews.com/google-lunar-x-prize-teams-await-word-of-their-fate/

Bob Clark

 

[Col_Klonk]

As Soheil says..

'This tastes like crap'
'Really !.. let me try.... Hey!! it is crap...not bad', munch.. munch!!
:tiphat:

 

[Soheil_Esy]

As Soheil says..

'This tastes like crap'
'Really !.. let me try.... Hey!! it is crap...not bad', munch.. munch!!
:tiphat:

I bet they taste like chicken.

Dude, don’t make me go ape!:lol:

[ame="https://twitter.com/PDChina/status/818994993608028161"]Dude, don’t make me go ape![/ame]
https://twitter.com/PDChina/status/818994993608028161