Local companies join private Moon mission

July 16, 11:24 AMDC Space News ExaminerKeith Stein

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Two global companies with offices in the Washington, D.C. area have joined a corporate team to become the first private company to supply payload delivery services to the Moon.

The main company, Odyssey Moon Limited, a multi-national corporation headquartered in the Isle of Man, was created to capitalize on commercial opportunities by renewed interests in exploring the Moon.

On Thursday, Odyssey Moon announced that space insurance company Aon International Space Brokers and a global law firm, Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP, have joined its corporate team.

Aon is the leading global space risk advisor and provider of space related insurance.

Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP is one of the world's preeminent global law firms, providing a full range of financial and business legal services to many of the world’s leading financial, industrial and commercial enterprises, as well as governments, institutions and individuals.

Odyssey Moon plans to provide a cost-efficient means for government, academic and commercial institutions to send scientific instruments and other payloads to the Moon. The company is the first official contender in the $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE competition.

The $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE is an unprecedented international competition that challenges and inspires engineers and entrepreneurs from around the world to develop low-cost methods of robotic space exploration.

The $30 million prize purse is segmented into a $20 million grand prize, a $5 million second prize and $5 million in bonus prizes.

To win the grand prize, a team must successfully soft land a privately funded spacecraft on the Moon, rove on the lunar surface for a minimum of 500 meters (1,640 feet), and transmit a specific set of video, images and data back to the Earth.

The grand prize is $20 million until December 31, 2012; thereafter it will drop to $15 million until December 31, 2014 at which point the competition will be terminated unless extended by Google and the X PRIZE Foundation.

Odyssey Moon expects to begin its operational phase with its first mission to the Moon in 2012.