Dismay after organisers cancel $30m Moon mission prize

Engineers and scientists around the world were dismayed after organisers cancelled the $30m Google-sponsored Lunar XPrize competition to land a private spacecraft on the Moon.

The 10-year prize could have “kick-started a new chapter in planetary exploration,” said lunar scientist Deepak Dhingra from the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur. 

“It certainly highlights once again how difficult it is to get into the space business,” said Dhingra, who worked on Chandrayaan-1, India’s first lunar probe. 

“Whether one looks at the US or former USSR, it was the uninterrupted flow of money, along with some seriously brilliant and committed minds, that helped tide over several failures and led to our current capabilities. The same needs to be repeated.”

The competition aimed to reach the Earth’s natural satellite before 31 March 2018, but foundation bosses concluded that none of the five finalist teams would succeed.

Despite the setback, all the teams involved – Moon Express in the US, India’s TeamIndus, Team Hakuto from Japan, SpaceIL in Israel and international group Synergy Moon – still plan to launch a mix of conventional and more experimental rovers. 

Dhingra thinks that some might succeed – however, he added, “Timing is critical to starting a revolution.”

This article appears in the February issue of Professional Engineering.

Content published by Professional Engineering does not necessarily represent the views of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.