Astrobotic didn't just design rovers, they put an enormous effort into background research (e.g. chilling batteries in liquid nitrogen for lunar night survival). These maps show studies for polar missions, including power generation and traverse planning. This is only a glimpse at what they did, there is lots more. The 'sustained illumination route' is always in sunlight and they had other versions of it, farther from the pole.
#maps #moon #GLXP

The rover missions we just looked at were for the first Astrobotic mission, to win the Google Lunar X Prize, but the team had ambitions far beyond that. This table lists several versions of their plans. The missions are more overtly for science or engineering development. Some might become Discovery or other NASA missions, others might support Constellation. The dates given are expected launch dates. This is only just becoming feasible today.
#moon #GLXP

The Astrobotic mission plan evolved rapidly during the first year, soon shifting to a shorter ‘Tranquility Trek’ of about 30 km from the Apollo 11 site to Surveyor 5. An Astrobotic video in 2010 showed the rover landing near the Tranquillitatis skylight, driving to its edge to view the interior, and then driving 300 km to the Apollo 11 site to view sunset near the LM. The map shows these 3 suggested missions. Their plans went far beyond this, as we will see.
#maps #moon #GLXP

As initially described by Astrobotic, in a mission called ‘Tranquility Trek’ a lander named Artemis would deploy a rover called Red Rover about 500 m from the Apollo 11 LM descent stage near the 40th anniversary of that landing. The rover would in fact touch down just after the first lunar sunrise following the anniversary, on 26 or 27 July 2009. After examining the Apollo 11 site it would set off on a 300 km trek to the Apollo 16 site.
#moon #GLXP

Robotic vehicle expert William 'Red' Whittaker of Carnegie Mellon University had been involved with Lunacorp and the Icebreaker Discovery mission proposal, and now headed Astrobotic, our next GLXP team. Astrobotic persisted after the GLXP ended and is now part of the CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) program, one of a small number of teams who made that jump. We will spend more time on this interesting team beginning with their GLXP plans.
#moon #GLXP

And they continued working on ever more tenuous plans after the X Prize ended, moving from Romania to the US and back. My main interest is always landing sites. Romania is home to the Carpathian Mountains so they decided to land in southern Mare Imbrium within view of the Montes Carpatus (named after the Carpathians, obviously... there's a story in that association, he said cryptically with an eye to a future post).
#moon #GLXP

21 February 2008: the first ten registered teams (including Odyssey Moon) were introduced at Google's campus in Mountain View, CA. One was ARCA (Romanian acronym for Aeronautics and Cosmonautics Romanian Association). Most teams planned to buy a launch but ARCA decided to build its own rocket, which never seemed very realistic. Their small rocket would launch from a balloon (and later a supersonic jet plane). These plans never came to anything. ARCA had been in the first X Prize...
#moon #GLXP

to form a new US-based team with better financial prospects. Odyssey Moon struggled to continue, and late in 2012 it merged with Israeli team SpaceIL and continued under that name. While it was operating the team mentioned landing in a dark pyroclastic deposit such as Rima Bode or Sulpicius Gallus. Apollo sites were considered later. The lander would hop to meet the GLXP movement goal, but later missions might use rovers or do sample return.
#moon #GLXP

Now we can start looking at teams, with maps of landing sites where needed. We go in order of joining, and alphabetical order in groups joining at the same time. The first was Odyssey Moon, led by Bob Richards and run from the Isle of Man. It formed before the GLXP and joined as soon as it could. Alan Stern and Paul Spudis joined as advisors. Like all teams their fundraising was hurt by the 2008 economic crisis. In 2010 Richards bailed out (taking many of the team with him)...
#moon #GLXP

Just before we look at GLXP teams I should add some other details. The prize was $20 million up to the end of 2012 or $15 million up to the end of 2014. This changed frequently. In 2010 the deadline became the end of 2015. The prize would fall by $5 million if a government mission landed first, a condition dropped in late 2013 as China prepared its Chang-E 3. A second prize was added and more prizes for some additional tasks like surviving the lunar night. It got quite complicated.
#moon #GLXP