Teams of scientists and engineers around the world have been figuratively racing one another to the moon as they try to win the Google Lunar X PRIZE, a $30 million contest meant to spark a new generation of moon rovers. Now, they may wind up literally racing one another on the surface of moon. Rovers will be rolling side-by-side toward the finish line to claim the prize in what may be the first-ever moon motorsports event.

At a press conference in Tokyo on Monday, the leaders of two Lunar X PRIZE teams—Astrobotic and HAKUTO—announced a plan in which the two teams' robotic rovers will travel to the moon together and touch down on the lunar surface at the same time. They will then race each other to cover the 500 meters required to win the first place prize of $20 million.

John Thornton, head of Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic (a Carnegie Mellon University spin-off), said in a call with reporters that the partnership with HAKUTO (a spin-off from Tokyo University) represented the first step in realizing his team's goal of turning robotic moon missions into a viable business. That mission won't stop with this single partnership. He said the team was in talks with more than half of the other 16 GLXP competitors to carry their rovers to the moon, too, in exchange for sharing the cost of getting there and splitting prize money.

It'll be like a Formula One race on the surface of the moon

"If we get enough teams to fly, there could be a scenario where Astrobotic ends up with no prize money," said Thornton on the call. "And that would be okay with us. Our goal is to successfully create a commercial capability to fly and deliver payload to the moon. We will have achieved that goal whether we have some of the winnings of the prize, or a lot of the winnings of the prize, or maybe none of the winnings of the prize."

Lunar carpooling

Astrobotic is developing a spacecraft called Griffin for landing on the moon as well as its rover, called Andy. HAKUTO is focusing exclusively on developing its rover—hence the need for a ride to the moon.

"We decided not to develop a lander," HAKUTO team leader Takeshi Hakamada said on the call. "We have to chose a lander. The reason why we chose Astrobotic is partly that we are planning to explore the lunar caves, the skylights. Astrobotic also has a plan to land close to a skylight." Hakamada also cited what he called Astrobotic's advanced technology as a factor in selecting that team for the partnership.

If all goes according to plan, Astrobotic's spacecraft will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in the second half of 2016 carrying Andy, plus HAKUTO's two rovers, Moonraker and Tetris, and any other rovers that have signed up for a ride by then. (The deadline to win the prize is the end of 2016.) Astrobotic has not yet contracted with SpaceX for the launch—it wants to know exactly who's coming along for the ride first.

"We will secure a launch vehicle when we have all the payloads booked," said Thornton. "What we don't want to do is get in a scenario where we secure the launch too quickly and we burn funds and run out of runway."

Ladies and gentlemen, energize your actuators

Formula One on the moon

The Griffin lander will operate autonomously during its descent from the rocket to the moon's surface, using software developed at CMU, a pair of cameras to provide stereo vision, and a range-finding laser to do what Neil Armstrong had to do by hand in 1969.

Once the lander touches down in the lunar plain called Lacus Mortis (Latin for "lake of death"), in the northeast part of the hemisphere that faces Earth, breakaway bolts will release Andy, which will have made the trip attached to the bottom of the spacecraft. The rover will then maneuver into a position to take video of the other rovers as they are released. HAKUTO's rovers will roll down a ramp from an enclosed pod. Other rovers would use their own methods of deployment.

"Once all the rovers are released and everyone's turned on and initiated," said Thornton, "we'll line the rovers up, and then the green flag will go up, and the race is on. It'll be like a full-on Formula One kind of race on the surface of the moon."

Each rover will communicate with the spacecraft, which will in turn relay the transmissions back to Earth. The plan is to have live video feeds coming back from each rover as the race progresses. The race will be a bit slower than a Formula One car race, though. The rovers will crawl along slowly enough for each one to take stock of its surroundings as it goes and autonomously avoid rocks and craters that might impede its progress.

Nevertheless, the first real moon race in history should make for some riveting imagery. Ladies and gentlemen, energize your actuators.

Michael Belfiore is the author of Rocketeers: How a Visionary Band of Business Leaders, Engineers, and Pilots Is Boldly Privatizing Space.



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