Overview of Contest
Purpose:
The purpose of the Google Lunar X Prize Competition is to encourage privately funded space exploration to the moon that is less expensive than previous government missions. Another goal of the competition is to initiate long term plans for colonizing the Moon. This competition is designed to kick start Moon 2.0, which will help get clean affordable energy
and abundant resources from the moon. Up to 30 million dollars in prize money is offered to the first privately funded craft to successfully
land on the moon and survive long enough to complete the mission goals. [3]
Tasks/Prizes:
To get the prize money, the rover must wander the Moon's surface for at least 500 meters and send a "Mooncast," or a
defined data package, back to the Earth. The first team to accomplish this will receive 20 million dollars in prize money and the
second team will receive 5 million dollars in prize money. Additional tasks include wandering the Moon for distances exceeding 5,000 meters, imaging man-made artifacts on the Moon, finding frozen water at the poles, and/or surviving a lunar night. Each additional task completed rewards the team with an additional 5 million dollars. These bonus tasks make the competition tricky and require teams to build sturdy crafts that can survive frigid temperatures and rugged terrains. [2]
Botball:
As middle school and high school students, we cannot actively participate in the X-Prize for obvious reasons, but we can still help out. KIPR has created a website design challenge for students our age to get involved in the X-Prize. Therefore we can help out by creating a website that describes a rover that would land on the Moon. Participants in the X-Prize can view our well-researched websites and apply some of our ingenious ideas to their rovers. We hope this website helps, X-Prize teams. Good luck on your rovers!