After several delays in the completion deadline, this year the GLXP organizers announced there would be no more extensions and no one won the prize.

They had previously awarded several technical prizes for capability demonstrations.

Despite this, several of the private teams are pressing on.

Hakuto were one of the final entries and have their rover at an advanced stage. They will share a lander with two other projects (the US based Astrobotic and Chilean Team AngelicvM ). They’ve booked an Atlas V to launch in 2020.

Moon Express plans to use the New Zealand based Rocket Labs to launch the Lunar Scout to the lunar south pole in 2019, to operate a telescope and perform relativity experiments.

The Indian TeamIndus are also planning a launch next year.

dv said:

After several delays in the completion deadline, this year the GLXP organizers announced there would be no more extensions and no one won the prize.

They had previously awarded several technical prizes for capability demonstrations.

Despite this, several of the private teams are pressing on.

Hakuto were one of the final entries and have their rover at an advanced stage. They will share a lander with two other projects (the US based Astrobotic and Chilean Team AngelicvM ). They’ve booked an Atlas V to launch in 2020.

Moon Express plans to use the New Zealand based Rocket Labs to launch the Lunar Scout to the lunar south pole in 2019, to operate a telescope and perform relativity experiments.

The Indian TeamIndus are also planning a launch next year.

Thanks for the update. Hakuto / Astrobotic / AngelicvM and Moon Express and TeamIndus. Worth watching.

The prize money was never enough to pay for the attempt, but it was a good incentive for those with money who wanted to take the risk. The rover was the easy bit, even a radio-controlled toy car will do in a pinch. The lander is much more of a challenge. The launch is another order of magnitude more difficult than the lander, all the prize money would vanish in the launch cost.

I’m delighted at the success of Rocket Labs.