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

Google Lunar X Prize The Google Lunar XPRIZE (GLXP), sometimes referred to as Moon 2.0, 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 th ...

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 ) , anthem = "O Land of Our Birth" , image = Isle of Man by Sentinel-2.jpg , image_map = Europe-Isle_of_Man.svg , mapsize = , map_alt = Location of the Isle of Man in Europe , map_caption = Location of the Isle of Man (green) in Europe ...

, and is the design of

Robert D. Richards Robert D. Richards is a Canadian-born space entrepreneur. He is co-founder and CEO of Moon Express, Inc., a U.S. company partnered with NASA and developing robotic spacecraft to provide low cost access to the Moon for science, exploration and co ...

. 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 and planetary scientist. He is the principal investigator of the ''New Horizons'' mission to Pluto and the Chief Scientist at Moon Express. Stern has been involved in 24 suborbital ...

, 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 will be responsible for all programs and commercial launch operations. He brings a great deal of 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 National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten field centers. Since December 1968 ...

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 aerospace, arms, defense, information security, and technology corporation with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta in March 1995. It ...

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

, 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 agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

projects including the

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially 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. Its official program na ...

and the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA ...

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 Space advocacy is supporting or advocating for a human use of out ...

, an international space interest group co-founded by

Carl Sagan Carl Edward Sagan (; ; November 9, 1934December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer, planetary scientist, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, author, and science communicator. His best known scientific contribution is research on ext ...

, 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 inves ...

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

European Space Agency , owners = , headquarters = Paris, Île-de-France, France , coordinates = , spaceport = Guiana Space Centre , seal = File:ESA emblem seal.png , seal_size = 130px , image = Views in the Main Control Room (1205 ...

's failed

Beagle 2 The ''Beagle 2'' is 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 Mar ...

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