Israeli team secures first Google Lunar XPRIZE launch contract for 2017 moonshot

For close to eight years now, teams from around the world have been competing to win the global Google Lunar XPRIZE race to the moon each building a privately-funded robotic spacecraft and mission to be the first to land on the lunar surface.

With 16 remaining teams of scientists, explorers and adventurers from the United States, Italy, Malaysia and elsewhere hard at work designing and fundraising, an Israeli team SpaceIL have secured their launch contract to fly, and land, the world’s first private lunar mission.

SpaceX will provide the rocket with their Falcon-9, and the mission aims to launch sometime in the second half of 2017 as a secondary payload.

“We kicked off this challenge in 2007 to foster innovation and entrepreneurship in space through low-cost, efficient access to the moon. But until now, all the tinkering has been on terra firma. SpaceIL’s securing of a verified launch contract by the December 2015 deadline keeps the competition open to all Google Lunar XPRIZE teams, who now have until the end of 2016 to secure their own launch contracts to head to the moon by the end of 2017,” said Yasemin Denari Southworth, Manager, Cultural Activation & Partnerships at Google through a blog post.

SpaceIL securing the first launch vehicle is also important to the other teams as well, because – per the terms of the Google Lunar XPRIZE deadline – “If no team has provided XPRIZE and Google with notification of launch contract by December 31, 2015 the competition will conclude.”

Now that at least one team has a launch contact all of the other remaining teams now have until December 31, 2016 to also secure their launch contracts in order to move forward in the competition.

“We are proud to officially confirm receipt and verification of SpaceIL’s launch contract, positioning them as the first and only Google Lunar XPRIZE team to demonstrate this important achievement, thus far,” said Bob Weiss, vice chairman and president of XPRIZE. “The magnitude of this achievement cannot be overstated, representing an unprecedented and monumental commitment for a privately-funded organization, and kicks off an exciting phase of the competition in which the other 15 teams now have until the end of 2016 to produce their own verified launch contracts. It gives all of us at XPRIZE and Google the great pride to say, ‘the new space race is on!”

The first team to soft-land an unmanned spacecraft on the moon, travel 500 meters (1640 feet) across the surface, and send high-resolution images and video back to Earth will take home US $20 million Grand Prize awaits

SpaceIL’s flight would mark the first Israeli mission to the moon, joining just 3 other countries in the exclusive club; the United States, the former Soviet Union, and China.