James Dean

FLORIDA TODAY

Cape Canaveral-based Moon Express on Friday announced it has secured $20 million in new investment that ensures the company can attempt to launch a small robotic lander to the moon as soon as the end of this year.

“We now have all the resources in place to shoot for the moon,” Moon Express co-founder and CEO Bob Richards said in a statement.

The private moon shot will blast off from New Zealand on Rocket Lab’s new Electron rocket, which has not yet flown.

Meanwhile, Moon Express has begun renovating the former Delta II launch site at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station to serve as its base for testing the washing machine-sized MX-1E spacecraft.

A successful lunar landing this year could position the company to claim the $20 million grand prize in the Google Lunar XPRIZE.

The prize will go to the first privately developed lander to touch down, maneuver to another location and beam back high-definition images.

Moon Express has longer-term ambitions to establish a low-cost lunar transportation service that could enable science missions, mining of water ice and perhaps some day sending people to the surface.

“Our goal is to expand Earth’s social and economic sphere to the moon, our largely unexplored eighth continent, and enable a new era of low cost lunar exploration and development for students, scientists, space agencies and commercial interests,” said Richards.

Last year, Moon Express became the first company to win U.S. government approval to fly a commercial deep space mission.

In total, the company says it has raised more than $45 million in private investment from individuals and venture capital sources including Founders Fund, Collaborative Fund and Autodesk.

Contact Dean at 321-242-3668 orjdean@floridatoday.com.And follow on Twitter at@flatoday_jdeanand on Facebook atfacebook.com/jamesdeanspace.