The GLXP panel is coming to TeamIndus
The week that lies ahead at TeamIndus
If you have been following our blog, you would know that this week we will be hosting scientists and engineers from GLXP. This is a critical event for us to display the major mission tests and data in order to prove our mission readiness as per the launch timelines.
If you are not familiar, Google Lunar XPRIZE (GLXP) is a competition to develop low-cost methods of robotic space exploration. In order to win this competition teams must perform the below tasks (refer image).
Adding to this massive engineering challenge is that teams must be 90% privately funded. This is an additional challenge as raising funds for a project on this scale comes with the inherent risk involved in space missions.
This competition started from a group of 29 contestants in the year 2007. It is now down to five teams officially moving forward into the final stretch of this competition. The five teams moving ahead are SpaceIL(Israel), Moon Express(USA), Synergy Moon(International), Hakuto(Japan) and TeamIndus(India).
Our story with GLXP started in 2011, when a small group of friends — on finding that India had no representative — decided to take it upon themselves and registered as the only Indian team.
Fast forward to Jan 2015, we won $1M as a Milestone prize for demonstrating risk mitigation in our landing technology. You can read more on the milestone prize here.
The GLXP milestone prize is a daily reminder of how a group of ordinary folks can come together to achieve the extraordinary.
Here is a timeline of our journey so far. Do give it a read.
As we approach the launch date, we are undergoing intense preparations for the last lap. The experts will conduct this review based on 10 major milestones. These milestones have been shortlisted based on the expected readiness from a mission that will be launched as per the updated GLXP timeline.
More on these milestones coming up tomorrow.
Here is a list of the visiting dignitaries. You can read more about the judges here and the XPRIZE foundation members here.
The crew has been working with the pedal to the metal to prepare for this review. We look forward to the learning and feedback that lies ahead of us. Let’s do this!!
We believe the next billion are stakeholders in our journey and, potentially, the biggest beneficiary of the success of our Mission. That’s why we want to keep everyone informed about the mission and its progress.
Stay tuned as we share all the updates from the week on our blog. #HarIndianKaMoonshot
