$30M prize spurs race for moon landing

The race is on to return to the moon, and one contestant has already revealed designs for its robotic spacecraft.

With the Lunar XPRIZE, Google is offering $30 million to the first private company to design a robotic spacecraft and safely land it on the lunar surface. It is largest incentive-based prize of all time.

A Silicon Valley company, Moon Express, revealed the first designs for the contest in Las Vegas on Thursday night.

“We believe it’s critical for humanity to become a multi-world species and that our sister world, the Moon, is an eighth continent holding vast resources that can help us enrich and secure our future,” a press release on the company’s website said.

A feat that once required the budget of a superpower is now within reach of private companies like Moon Express. The last successful lunar landing, made by the Apollo 17 mission, was in 1972.

The XPRIZE Foundation is a nonprofit organization that aims to bring about "radical breakthroughs" for the benefit of humanity and to spur innovation in markets that are currently stuck, according to its website.

To secure the prize, the craft must land on the moon’s surface and travel at least 500 meters above, below or on the surface and send back two “mooncasts” to Earth. A bonus prize will be offered for activities such as surviving the lunar night.

“More than half of the world’s population has never had the opportunity to view a live transmission from the lunar surface. The Google Lunar XPRIZE aims to create a new ‘Apollo’ moment for this generation,” the organization’s website read.

Contestants have until Dec. 31, 2015 to make a landing. Moon Express says it expects to launch a maiden flight in 2015.

Moon Express, a privately funded lunar resources company, was founded in 2010 by Bob Richards, Naveen Jain and Barney Pell.

The company unveiled its MX-1 lunar lander spacecraft late Thursday evening at the closing session of Autodesk University in Las Vegas before an audience of over 10,000.

It says robotic space vehicles like its MX-1 can be used for scientific and commercial purposes, and can deliver payloads to the moon at a "fraction of the cost of conventional approaches."

MX-1 is a powered by sunlight. Its rocket fuel source is hydrogen peroxide, found commonly in nature and biological systems, and it uses kerosene as an after-burner to propel the craft out of Earth’s orbit.

With the recent discovery of water on the moon, MX-1 has a potential fuel source on the lunar surface.

The craft is about the size of a large coffee table, and after hitching a ride aboard commercial launchers to Earth’s orbit — where communications satellites orbit — it will be able to accelerate to the moon, and beyond.

Moon Express hopes to develop new robotic spacecraft technology that will reduce the costs of exploring space. The company is also interested in exploring the moon's resources, including platinum, rare earth elements and helium.