engineering

Google Lunar X Prize

Google Lunar X Prize is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Google Lunar X Prize rather than just read about it. In short: The Google Lunar X Prize (GLXP) was a 2007–2018 inducement prize space competition organized by the X Prize Foundation, and sponsored by Google. The challenge called for privately funded teams to be the first to land a lunar rover on the Moon, travel 500 meters, and transmit back to Earth high-definition video and images.

Key takeaways

Google Lunar X Prize belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Google Lunar X Prize to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Google Lunar X Prize from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Google Lunar X Prize (GLXP) was a 2007–2018 inducement prize space competition organized by the X Prize Foundation, and sponsored by Google. The challenge called for privately funded teams to be the first to land a lunar rover on the Moon, travel 500 meters, and transmit back to Earth high-definition video and images. The original deadline was the end of 2014, with additional prize money for a landing by 2012. In 2015, XPRIZE announced that the competition deadline would be extended to December 2017 if at least one team could secure a verified launch contract by 31 December 2015. Two teams secured such a launch contract, and the deadline was extended. In August 2017, the deadline was extended again, to 31 March 2018. Entering 2018, five teams remained in the competition: SpaceIL, Moon Express, Synergy Moon, TeamIndus, and Team Hakuto, having secured verified launch contracts with Spaceflight Industries, Rocket Lab, Interorbital Systems, and ISRO (jointly for the last two teams). On 23 January 2018, the X Prize Foundation announced that "no team would be able to make a launch attempt to reach the Moon by the [31 March 2018] deadline ... and the US$30 million Google Lunar XPRIZE will go unclaimed." On 5 April 2018, the X Prize Foundation announced that the Lunar XPRIZE would continue as a non-cash competition. On 11 April 2019, the SpaceIL Beresheet spacecraft crashed while attempting to land on the Moon. The SpaceIL team was awarded a $1 million "Moonshot Award" by the X Prize Foundation in recognition of touching the surface of the Moon.

Competition summary The Google Lunar XPRIZE was announced at the Wired Nextfest on 13 September 2007. The competition offered a total of US$30 million in prizes to the first privately funded teams to land a robot on the Moon that travels more than 500 meters (1,640 ft) and transmits back high-definition images and video. The first team to do so would have received the US$20 million grand prize; the second team to do so, a US$5 million second prize. Teams could earn additional money by completing tasks beyond the baseline requirements required to win the grand or second prize, such as traveling ten times the baseline requirements (greater than 5,000 meters (3 mi)), capturing images of the remains of Apollo program hardware or other man-made objects on the Moon, verifying from the lunar surface the recent detection of water ice on the Moon, or surviving a lunar night. Additionally, a US$1 million diversity award was to be given to teams that make strides in promoting ethnic diversity in STEM fields. To provide an added incentive for teams to complete their missions quickly, it was announced that the prize would decrease from US$20 million to US$15 million whenever a government-led mission lands on and explores the lunar surface. However, in November 2013, the organizers and the teams agreed to drop this rule as the Chinese Chang'e 3 probe prepared to land on the Moon in December 2013. In 2015, XPRIZE announced that the competition deadline would be extended to December 2017 if at least one team could secure a verified launch contract by 31 December 2015. Two teams secured such a launch contract, and the deadline was extended. XPRIZE announced 5 finalists on 24 January 2017. SpaceIL, Moon Express, Synergy Moon, Team Indus, and Hakuto having secured verified launch contracts for 2017 (with SpaceX, Rocket Lab, Interorbital Systems and ISRO respectively). All other teams had until the end of 2016 to secure a verified launch contract, but failed to meet this deadline. The Google Lunar XPRIZE expired on 31 March 2018 as none of the five final teams were able to launch their vehicles by the deadline. Google declined to further extend the deadline, and the prize went unclaimed.

Overview Peter Diamandis, the project founder, wrote on the official web page in 2007: It has been many decades since we explored the Moon from the lunar surface, and it could be another 6–8 years before any government returns. Even then, it will be at a large expense, and probably with little public involvement. The goal of the Google Lunar X Prize was similar to that of the Ansari X Prize: to inspire a new generation of private investment in hopes of developing more cost-effective technologies and materials to overcome many limitations of space exploration that are currently taken for granted.

History

The Google Lunar XPRIZE was announced in 2007. Similar to the way in which the Ansari XPRIZE was formed, the Google Lunar XPRIZE was created out of a former venture of Peter Diamandis to achieve a similar goal. Diamandis served as CEO of BlastOff! Corporation, a commercial initiative to land a robotic spacecraft on the Moon as a mix of entertainment, internet, and space. Although it was ultimately unsuccessful, the BlastOff! initiative paved the way for the Google Lunar X Prize. Initially, NASA was the planned sponsor and the prize purse was just US$20 million. As NASA is a federal agency of the United States government, and thus funded by U.S. tax money, the prize would only have been available to teams from the United States. The original intention was to propose the idea to other national space agencies, including the European Space Agency and the Japanese space agency, in the hope that they would offer similar prize purses. However, budget setbacks stopped NASA from sponsoring the prize. Peter Diamandis then presented the idea to Larry Page and Sergey Brin, co-founders of Google, at an XPRIZE fundraiser. They agreed to sponsor it, and also to increase the prize purse to US$30 million, allowing for a second place prize, as well as bonus prizes.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Google Lunar X Prize

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Google Lunar X Prize claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Google Lunar X Prize before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Google Lunar X Prize ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Google Lunar X Prize

In research: Google Lunar X Prize appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Google Lunar X Prize in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Google Lunar X Prize is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Challenge awards, Crowdsourcing, Exploration of the Moon, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Google Lunar X Prize outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Google Lunar X Prize in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Google Lunar X Prize means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Google Lunar X Prize out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Google Lunar X Prize in simple terms?

Why does Google Lunar X Prize matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Google Lunar X Prize?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Google Lunar X Prize.