After winning a million-dollar prize from Google GOOGL +0.16% this week, a team of Indian engineers — some young, some retired from the Indian space program — are now a step closer to their goal of becoming the world’s first private-sector group to land on the moon.
Indian aerospace startup, Axiom Research Labs, was one of the winners of an interim prize in a global competition to develop an inexpensive and private-sector powered spacecraft that can land on the moon and explore its surface.
While there are 17 other teams in the race, the only Indian team — which has dubbed itself Team Indus — is confident it will be the first to reach the moon, touching down early next year.
“We can be the first, that’s why we are in this race,” said Dilip Chabria, one of the seven founders of the company.
Team Indus has more than just landing gear ready. It already has a working moon rover. The WALL-E lookalike is named Ek Choti Si Asha, Hindi for one small hope.
The Axiom Research team won the money because it had developed some of sturdiest landing gear for their spacecraft. The gear, which allows for a soft landing, is a crucial component to success. The fact that team India was judged to have some of the best gear suggests they may be ahead in the race.
The Google Lunar XPrize prize was created to trigger the private-sector innovation and investment needed for the world’s first privately-funded exploration of the moon.
To win the final $30 million prize, teams have until the end of next year to develop a spacecraft that can land on the moon and release a robot to explore at least 500 meters from the landing site and send high-definition images back to Earth.
Two U.S. companies also received $1 million milestone awards each for their landing gear. The moon mission challenge, launched by Google in partnership with XPrize Foundation in 2007, was created to get non-government groups involved in space exploration.
- This moon rover, developed by India’s Axiom Research Labs, is called Ek Choti Si Asha (Hindi for a one small hope).
- Axiom Research Labs Pvt.
The Indian team plause the fundsns to to further develop the technology and design of its spacecraft.
It estimates that it needs a total of $45 million to reach the moon. It has raised some of the money already through investors and is still trying to raise the rest, said Mr. Chabria. He would not disclose how much money he still needs.
While the Indian government is gearing up for an unmanned mission to land on the moon by 2017, Axiom thinks it can beat it to the lunar surface, which would make it the first India organization to make the giant leap.
The Indian government has already made a name for itself in frugal spaceflight. Its successful launch of a spacecraft into Mars’ orbit last year made it the first in Asian country to reach the red planet. It did it for $74 million, a fraction of the similar missions by other countries.
The seven founders of Axiom are all friends. While some them are big fans of Star Trek they have little connection to the aerospace industry. They just heard about the contest and decided to dive in, with the help of a dozen retired scientists from the Indian Space Research Organisation as advisors and roughly 40 aviation engineers.
The other prize winners included Astrobotic of the U.S.. It won $1 million for its landing gear, $500,000 for its rover and $250,000 for its camera system. Moon Express, another U.S. company, won $1 million for its landing gear and $250,000 for its camera system.
A team from Japan called Hakuto and a German team called Part-Time Scientists each won $500,000 for their rovers. Part-Time Scientists also grabbed $250,000 for their camera system.
