Kiwithrottlejockey
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Having fun in the hills!
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« on: October 08, 2015, 06:49:34 pm » |
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from The Washington Post....The first-ever private mission to the moon
just got a lot closer to realityBy BRIAN FUNG | 5:17PM - Wednesday, October 07, 2015 The Hopper, SpaceIL's moon lander. — Picture: Courtesy of SpaceIL.AN Israeli nonprofit that's competing to land the first private rover on the moon took a giant leap Wednesday when it said it has secured a spot on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to be launched in the latter half of 2017.
The non-profit, SpaceIL, is one of 16 teams participating in Google's Lunar XPRIZE competition. The challenge, which launched in 2007, calls for successfully landing an unmanned vehicle on the moon, driving it a third of a mile and then sending high-definition images back to Earth.
Securing a verified launch contract gives SpaceIL's rover a place inside a capsule within the rocket, which will carry other, non-SpaceIL payloads as well. The group said the contract wouldn't have been possible without the help of software billionaire Morris Kahn and Sheldon Adelson (yes, that Sheldon Adelson), whose two charities led a fundraising round that helped seal the deal.
“The #NewSpaceRace is on!” Google tweeted on Wednesday.
The other teams in the competition have until the end of 2016 to sign their own launch contracts so that they can complete the trip no later than the end of 2017.• Brian Fung covers technology for The Washington Post, focusing on telecommunications and the Internet. Before
joining the Post, he was the technology correspondent for National Journal and an associate editor at The Atlantic.https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/10/07/the-first-ever-private-mission-to-the-moon-just-got-a-lot-closer-to-reality
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