On 6 December 2007, Odyssey Moon was the first team to register for the

Google Lunar X Prize 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 t ...

competition, an event that hopes to rekindle the efforts of humans to return to the Moon. The competition is referred to as "Moon 2.0" and is composed of other private organizations like Odyssey Moon Limited, the commercial lunar enterprise that makes up this team. Each team will be competing for a $20 million first prize, a $5 million second prize, and additional $5 million in (potential) bonuses. MCSB - LADEE

Odyssey Moon Limited is based on the

Isle of Man The Isle of Man ( , also ), or Mann ( ), is a self-governing British Crown Dependency in the Irish Sea, between Great Britain and Ireland. As head of state, Charles III holds the title Lord of Mann and is represented by a Lieutenant Govern ...

, and is the design of Robert D. Richards. His goals include developing the first commercial enterprise that utilizes the energy and resources on the Moon. To achieve this end, the team enlisted the part-time consultant services of

Alan Stern Sol Alan Stern (born November 22, 1957) is an American engineer, planetary scientist and space tourist. He is the principal investigator of the ''New Horizons'' mission to Pluto and the Chief Scientist at Moon Express. Stern has been involved ...

, NASA's former top-rank planetary scientist. On 22 September 2008, another veteran of NASA joined Odyssey Moon. Jay F. Honeycutt was named president and was to be responsible for all programs and commercial launch operations. He brought much expertise in managing large scale engineering operations. His experience at NASA was diverse. He was director of the

Kennedy Space Center The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC, originally known as the NASA Launch Operations Center), located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of the NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten NASA facilities#List of field c ...

for several years and was director of Shuttle Management and Operations for more than five years. Outside NASA, another part of his forty years of professional experience was as president of

Lockheed Martin The Lockheed Martin Corporation is an American Arms industry, defense and aerospace manufacturer with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta on March 15, 1995. It is headquartered in North ...

Space Operations from 1997-2004. The team's goals are to build and deploy a robotic lander that will deliver exploration as well as scientific payloads to the Moon. The new lander/spacecraft has been dubbed "MoonOne (M-1)". These efforts have been contracted to

MacDonald Dettwiler MDA Space Ltd. is a Canadian space technology company headquartered in Brampton, Ontario, Canada, that provides geointelligence, robotics and space operations, and satellite systems. History MDA Space (formerly MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associat ...

, a Canadian corporation with a successful history of providing technical space solutions for several

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

projects including the

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable launch system, reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. ...

and the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is a large space station that was Assembly of the International Space Station, assembled and is maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA (United ...

The Planetary Society The Planetary Society is an American internationally-active non-governmental nonprofit organization. It is involved in research, public outreach, and political space advocacy for engineering projects related to astronomy, planetary science, a ...

, an international space interest group co-founded by

Carl Sagan Carl Edward Sagan (; ; November 9, 1934December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer, planetary scientist and science communicator. His best known scientific contribution is his research on the possibility of extraterrestrial life, including e ...

, joined Odyssey Moon's efforts in 2007, specifically with public outreach and coordination between public and private organizations.

Colin Pillinger Colin Trevor Pillinger, (; 9 May 1943 – 7 May 2014) was an English planetary scientist. He was a founding member of the Planetary and Space Sciences Research Institute at Open University in Milton Keynes, he was also the principal invest ...

, a scientist with a background in studying meteorites, led the

European Space Agency The European Space Agency (ESA) is a 23-member International organization, international organization devoted to space exploration. With its headquarters in Paris and a staff of around 2,547 people globally as of 2023, ESA was founded in 1975 ...

's failed

Beagle 2 The ''Beagle 2'' was an inoperative British Mars lander that was transported by the European Space Agency's 2003 ''Mars Express'' mission. It was intended to conduct an astrobiology mission that would have looked for evidence of past life on M ...

Mars lander project in 2003. In 2009 he was in discussion with Odyssey Moon regarding the use of an identical version of Beagle's most powerful instrument on their lander.

References

External links

Odyssey Moon Ltd's corporate website

Video clips

Odyssey Moon YouTube channel
{{Google Lunar X Prize Cancelled spacecraft Google Lunar X Prize Private spaceflight companies British companies established in 2007 Engineering companies of the Isle of Man Aerospace companies of Canada Space programme of the United Kingdom __NOTOC__

See also

References

External links

Video clips