On September 13th, 2007 the Google Lunar XPRIZE was announced and since then 16 teams from all over the world are left in competition to take us back to the moon with robots. Prizes totaling $30 million serve as the incentive to motivate teams to take to the moon with private funding and help break into more space and lunar exploration. The grand prize for winning this competition is $20 million to the team who can land a robot safely on the moon, move 500 meters on, above, or below the moon’s surface, and send back HDTV Mooncasts for everyone to enjoy. All of this must be completed by the final deadline of December 31st, 2016.

The XPRIZE itself “is a highly leveraged, incentivized prize competition that pushes the limits of what’s possible to change the world for the better.” Milestone prizes were also awarded to 5 teams in the categories of landing, mobility, and imaging. The teams Astrobotic (US), Team Indus (India), and Moon Express (US) each won $1 million for landing. For mobility of the robots Astrobotic, Hakuto (Japan), and Part-Time Scientists (Germany) were awarded with $500,000 each. And for imaging, $250,000 was given to each Astrobotic, Moon Express, and Part-Time Scientists. With the largest incentivized prize ever, the $30 million Google Lunar XPRIZE will surely take us back to the moon.

References:

http://lunar.xprize.org/about/overview

http://www.xprize.org/about/what-is-an-xprize

http://lunar.xprize.org/teams