Google has announced nine new teams for its Lunar X Prize, bringing the total number of competitors to ten.The teams have all met the registration requirements - including putting forward a $1,000 entrance fee - and are now in the race to build a robotic rover capable of landing on the moon and roaming its surface for at least 500 metres, sending images and data back to Earth as it does so.
Announced in September last year, the Google Lunar X Prize is being run in association with the X Prize Foundation and will see the winner walk away with a cash prize of $20 million.
Among the teams competing are Astrobotic, an organisation formed by Carnegie Mellon University, Raytheon Company and other institutions, Frednet, an international group of open source developers, scientists and engineers, and Odyssey Moon, a UK-based enterprise and the first team to enter the competition.
During a meeting yesterday (February 21st) at Google headquarters, the ten registrants revealed details of their plans, with Astrobotic stating its intention to launch a mission as early as next year.
Commenting on the developments, Google co-founder Sergey Brin said: "The idea of seeing these rovers on the moon and returning after 40 years faster than the national programmes, it's really exciting," CNET News.com reports.
Mr Brin added: "We love entrepreneurship here. It's worked well for us so we're looking forward to the launches in the coming years."
