SoylentNews

takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

The competition deadline for the Google Lunar XPrize has been set to March 31, 2018 [theverge.com]. It's the fourth time [newscientist.com] that the deadline has been changed. Previously, there was a launch deadline of December 31st, 2017. In addition, new prize money will be available [newscientist.com] to successful teams:

The Lunar Arrival Milestone prize offers $1.75 million to spacecraft that either orbit the moon or try landing. The Soft Landing Milestone Prize will award $3 million to any craft proven to successfully land on the surface. These new prizes aren't a race; they'll be split up among all teams which achieve the milestones by the end of March.

The first team to land a robot that travels 500 meters and sends imagery back to Earth will receive $30 million.

At Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] and XPrize [xprize.org].

Original Submission