One down, nine to go: TeamIndus’ baby step in the giant moonwalk

With six months to go for the $30-million Google Lunar XPRIZE, the judges and TeamIndus have agreed to a 10-step evaluation process. A lot needs to be done before March, including a massive fund raising

Though the teams always knew the mission completion date was 31 March 2018, in August GLXP relaxed the 31 December 2017 launch deadline. This has brought back the Israeli team back in the competition

The nine-member judges' panel will periodically review the teams’ readiness in a 10-step process before greenlighting their respective missions. It kicked off with TeamIndus

TeamIndus has raised half of $68 million required for completing this programme and is in the market to raise more money

Always high on publicity campaigns, TeamIndus now intends to launch a mega ‘participative platform’ for people

If in August the Google Lunar XPRIZE cheered the finalists by relaxing the launch date from December 2017 to March 2018, on Thursday it kicked off the first formal evaluation process from India. It isn’t surprising that the GLXP has chosen to start with Bengaluru because two finalists are hitching their ride on an Indian rocket, one of whom has chosen a very public path to this mission. In a 10-step evaluation process, the Indian finalist, TeamIndus, has crossed the first step towards the $30-million prize.

AUTHOR

Seema Singh

Seema has over two decades of experience in journalism. Before starting The Ken, Seema wrote “Myth Breaker: Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw and the Story of Indian Biotech”, published by HarperCollins in May 2016. Prior to that, she was a senior editor and bureau chief for Bangalore with Forbes India, and before that she wrote for Mint. Seema has written for numerous international publications like IEEE-Spectrum, New Scientist, Cell and Newsweek. Seema is a Knight Science Journalism Fellow from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a MacArthur Foundation Research Grantee.

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