I am working my way through the Catalogue of Teams for the Google Lunar X Prize, through the set of 10 teams announced in February 2008. The next is Chandah (Sanskrit for Moon), led by Adil Jafry. It made no public signs of progress until it was merged into Moon Express in 2010. The spacecraft would have been called Shehrezade.
Next up is Frednet. At first they suggested landing near an Apollo site. They got more specific on their website in 2009...
#moon #GLXP
Quantum 3, headed by Paul Carliner of Washington, D. C. and former NASA manager Courtney Stadd, withdrew later in 2008. The team had said it would land a spacecraft called Moondancer at an unspecified site in Mare Tranquillitatis. I don't know any more about them.
That leaves one more team from the first ten - which we will look at tomorrow. There's a bit more to say about them.
#moon #GLXP
Spoiler - Moon Chronicle part 8 includes the material I'm pillaging for this thread.
We have seen the GLXP teams announced in February 2008. The next set of 4 teams was announced in May 2008. I don't know much about the first 2, though they probably did more than I know (any advice welcome).
The Malaysian team Advaeros (Advanced Aerospace Industries) did not progress very far and withdrew in 2010. The team described a spacecraft called Picard but few details were released.
#moon #GLXP
The flypast of the LM matched NASA's guidelines for protection of heritage sites which were being put together around this period. In May 2012 Next Giant Leap was absorbed into Moon Express, another team with a hopping lander.
The mention of an upper stage impact is interesting. China's current plan for landing crews on the Moon has a braking rocket under the lander. It is discarded for the final descent (like NASA's Surveyors in the 1960s) and will make an interesting sight.
#moon #GLXP
This map shows the approximate rover path based on their description. Other sites were also considered by the team, including Luna 17 and Surveyor 1. The team was reorganized in 2010 under a new leader and planned to fly a cubesat to test their lunar cruise systems in 2011. By mid-2012 the team had been reconstituted again under a third leader and had a new landing site near Apollo 12. I am not aware of any further progress.
Celebrating the Chinese invention of rockets and fireworks, team Selene also planned a display of specially designed fireworks on the Moon. I don't know how that would work but presumably it could be done. The team withdrew in August 2011. I have no information about any potential landing sites.
2009 produced several new teams. We will look at them starting tomorrow.
#moon #GLXP
Here is a map of the Delambre site for White Label Space (WLS) in the highlands south of Apollo 11.
In September 2010 a Japanese group in WLS started work on the project. In 2013 the European side of the team folded and the team continued in Japan under co-founder Takeshi Hakamada. The company changed its name to ispace Inc. and the GLXP team took the name of its second rover prototype, Hakuto (White Rabbit), referring to a legend of a rabbit in the Moon.
#moon #GLXP
ispace continued after the GLXP and has already flown 2 lunar missions, both of which crashed. But they have more coming including a NASA CLPS mission with Draper Lab.
Now we move to a team which did not survive. They had a great idea but couldn't raise the money. This is Selenokhod, a Russian team which called itself Googlokhod before it registered. It would land near Apollo 12 or possibly Lunokhod 2. Their rover was also called Selenokhod, to distinguish it from Lunokhod.
#moon #GLXP
Selenokhod worked with some Soviet-era space veterans, notably Lunokhod driver Vyacheslav Dovgan, and planned a rover which walked on ski-like feet like the tiny Prop-M rovers carried to Mars on the Mars 2, 3 and 6 landers. An updated rover design by Smirnov Design was illustrated in video simulations. You have to see this. I would have given them a prize just for this video:

PTScientists continued work on a mission outside the GLXP. In 2019 they were part of a consortium including Arianespace which won a contract from ESA to study polar landing missions. In July 2019 funding shortfalls forced PTScientists into bankruptcy, but in September they were acquired by another company, changed their name to Planetary Transportation Systems (PTS GmbH) and continued their work on that contract. More details here:
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