Mystery Team for the Google Lunar X PRIZE Reveals Team at NASA Ames Research Center
Posted on: Thursday, 18 December 2008, 07:00 CST
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Dec. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Next Giant Leap
(http://www.nextgiantleap.com), a small company that was the fourth team to
register for the Google Lunar X PRIZE, publically announced its name and team
members at a press conference held today at the NASA Ames Research Center.
Based in the United States, the Next Giant Leap (NGL) team boasts highly
qualified members from the academic, aerospace and small business communities.
NGL was founded on the concept that a small but focused team is the ideal
vehicle to efficiently engineer the winning Google Lunar X PRIZE entry.
Founded by entrepreneur Michael Joyce in November of 2007, the team was known
only as the "Mystery Team" for the first year.
"Our first year was well spent, recruiting the best possible team members
and building the strong working relationships required to reach our goals,"
said Next Giant Leap Founder Michael Joyce. "With the world class team we
have assembled we are ready to take the next giant leap forward required to
win the Google X PRIZE and establish NGL as a commercial lunar services
company."
The X PRIZE Foundation and Google Inc. announced the Google Lunar X PRIZE,
a robotic race to the Moon to win a remarkable $30 million prize purse, on
September 13, 2007. Teams from around the world are competing to land a
privately funded robotic rover on the Moon that is capable of completing
several mission objectives, including travelling at least 500 meters across
the lunar surface and sending video, images and data back to the Earth.
"We've reveled in the additional excitement that has centered around our
'Mystery Team' and are thrilled to have them finally reveal their true
identities," said Dr. Peter H. Diamandis, Chairman and CEO of the X PRIZE
Foundation. "We are delighted to have them go public as we believe they will
be a strong contender with experienced participants, a strong academic partner
and several innovative, small space companies."
The lead systems integrator is MicroSat Systems, Inc., known for its
innovation in small spacecraft. On May 7, 2008, MicroSat Systems was awarded a
contract to build 18 Orbcomm Inc. satellites with an option for 30 more. In
charge of the difficult task of landing safely on the Moon is the Draper
Laboratory. Draper has been involved in space guidance navigation and control
since the earliest days of the space program supporting Apollo, the Space
Shuttle and the International Space Station. The Department of Aeronautics
and Astronautics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the leading
engineering institution in the United States, is a key academic partner. The
MIT team includes five time Shuttle astronaut Jeff Hoffman and Professor David
Miller, head of MIT's Space Systems Laboratory and developer of the innovative
SPHERES (Synchronized Position Hold Engage and Reorient Experimental
Satellites) payload on the International Space Station.
"When approached to join the Next Giant Leap team, we thought it was an
outstanding opportunity for our students to be exposed to several agile,
cutting-edge companies in the space business while working on a very
challenging project," said MIT professor Jeff Hoffman. "We feel that this team
has the right stuff to have a shot at capturing this very challenging prize."
Other innovative small companies that are partners on the team include
Aurora Flight Sciences, a company that operates on the frontiers of flight
with specialties in unmanned aerial vehicles and manned space hardware, and
Busek Co. Inc., a company that specializes in advanced space propulsion,
especially electrical propulsion systems.
"It's an exciting time to see companies in the private sector working to
develop a vehicle that will land on the lunar surface," said NASA Ames
Research Center Director S. Pete Worden. "These competitions bring new and
innovative ideas that everyone in the space community can benefit from and
that's a win-win for everybody."
ABOUT THE GOOGLE LUNAR X PRIZE
The $30 million prize purse is segmented into a $20 million Grand Prize, a
$5 million Second Prize and $5 million in bonus prizes. To win the Grand
Prize, a team must successfully soft land a privately funded spacecraft on the
Moon, rove on the lunar surface for a minimum of 500 meters, and transmit a
specific set of video, images and data back to the Earth. The Grand Prize is
$20 million until December 31st 2012; thereafter it will drop to $15 million
until December 31st 2014 at which point the competition will be terminated
unless extended by Google and the X PRIZE Foundation. For more information
about the Google Lunar X PRIZE, please visit http://www.googlelunarxprize.org.
SOURCE Next Giant Leap
Source: PR Newswire
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