Internet search company Google is offering a $30m (€22m) prize purse in a robotic race to the moon.
The competition is run by the X Prize Foundation, an educational non-profit prize organisation.
Private companies around the world will compete to land a robotic rover on the moon .
The first prize of $20m (€15m) will be offered until the end of 2012, and will then drop to $15m (€10m) until 2014.
The competition is designed to stimulate research to dramatically reducing the cost of space exploration, said the X Prize Foundation’s chairman and chief executive Dr. Peter H. Diamandis.
The top prize of $20m (€14.4) will be given to the private firm that lands a robot on the moon which is able to roam the lunar surface for at least 500 metres and send video, images and data back to earth.
A prize of $5m (€3.6m) will be given for second place.
Google said it would give bonuses of $5m (€3.6m) if the rovers complete other objectives such as travelling further on the Moon, taking pictures of Apollo hardware, finding water-ice and surviving the freezing lunar night.
Google hopes that this X-Prize could lead to important developments in robotic space exploration, as well as a host of new space-age materials and precision landing control technology.
“It has been many decades since we explored the Moon from the lunar surface, and it could be another six to eight years before any government returns,” said X Prize founder Peter H. Diamandis.
“Even then, it will be at a large expense and probably with little public involvement. The X-Prize Foundation could think of no better sponsor and partner than Google.
“We share a common vision for opening frontiers and a belief that a small dedicated group of individuals can accomplish amazing feats at very low cost.
“With the Ansari X-Prize, we were able to demonstrate that personal spaceflight is possible. Now, a new industry is emerging making it possible for anyone to fulfil their dream of spaceflight.
“With the Google Lunar X-Prize we hope to usher in an era of commercial exploration and development, in which small companies, groups of individuals and universities can build, launch and explore the Moon and beyond.”
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