14 DAY TRIAL // The "Mystery Team," which enrolled in Google's Lunar X Prize competition more than one year ago, finally revealed its identity, during a conference held at NASA Ames Research Center on Wednesday. The company, named Next Giant Leap, consists of members from the aerospace, academic and business communities, and already made available an artist's rendition of how their vehicle will look like. NGL joined the race in November 2007.
"Our first year was well spent, recruiting the best possible team members and building the strong working relationships required to reach our goals. With the world class team we have assembled we are ready to take the next giant leap forward required to win the Google X Prize and establish NGL as commercial lunar services company," said Michael Joyce, the entrepreneur who founded the company.
"We are delighted to have them go public as we believe they will be a strong contender with experienced participants, a strong academic partner and several innovative, small space companies," added the chairman and CEO of the X PRIZE Foundation, Peter H. Diamandis. The organization he leads, based in Santa Monica, California, is the one responsible for managing the funds of the Lunar X Prize.
The five members of the team are MicroSat Systems, Inc (lead system integrator), the Draper Laboratory (Moon landing expert), MIT's Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics (main academic partner), Aurora Flight Sciences (flight specialist), and Busek Co. Inc, which specializes in space propulsion, mainly the electric type.
For those who don't know what the Lunar Prize is all about, here's what Google says about it on a dedicated website: "A $20 million Grand Prize will be awarded to the team that can soft land a craft on the Moon that roams for at least 500 meters and transmits a Mooncast back to Earth. The Grand Prize is $20M until December 31st 2012; thereafter it will drop to $15M until December 31st 2014 at which point the competition will be terminated unless extended by Google and the X PRIZE Foundation."