{"id":19128,"date":"2016-12-21T00:20:45","date_gmt":"2016-12-20T16:20:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/xprize-clears-japans-team-hakuto-for-moon-mission-with-indias-team-indus\/"},"modified":"2016-12-21T00:20:45","modified_gmt":"2016-12-20T16:20:45","slug":"xprize-clears-japans-team-hakuto-for-moon-mission-with-indias-team-indus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/xprize-clears-japans-team-hakuto-for-moon-mission-with-indias-team-indus\/","title":{"rendered":"XPRIZE clears Japan\u2019s Team Hakuto for moon mission with India\u2019s Team Indus"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_297963\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-297963\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-297963\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/161220-moonraker-tetris-hakuto-630x417.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"630\" height=\"417\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/161220-moonraker-tetris-hakuto-630x417.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/161220-moonraker-tetris-hakuto.jpg 732w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-297963\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Japan\u2019s Team Hakuto is testing two small rovers known as Tetris (left foreground) and Moonraker (right background). The rovers would ride along with Team Indus\u2019 spacecraft. (Team Hakuto Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The rocketeers on Japan\u2019s Team Hakuto say they\u2019ve gotten the Google Lunar XPRIZE\u2019s seal of approval on its plans for a mission to the moon.<\/p>\n<p>The XPRIZE verification of Team Hakuto\u2019s launch agreement with India\u2019s Team&nbsp;Indus boosts the number of approved competitors to five. That includes Team Indus as well as Moon Express, Synergy Moon and SpaceIL.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Google Lunar XPRIZE has always pushed us beyond our limits\u201d Takeshi Hakamada, Team Hakuto\u2019s leader, said in today\u2019s news release. \u201cWe will continue to challenge ourselves next year and choose an optimal path to reach the moon.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Team Hakuto is run by a Tokyo-based startup called ispace, and draws upon expertise from faculty and students at Tohoku University.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"CNET News - Google Lunar XPrize: Rovers on the beach with Team Hakuto in Japan\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/a9kQj_LUeEA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The team\u2019s arrangement calls for sharing a ride to the moon with Team Indus, a competitor, on a PSLV launch vehicle to be sent up from Satish Dhawan Space Center in India around Dec. 28, 2017. That\u2019s just a few days before the deadline for winning a share of the $30 million Google Lunar XPRIZE purse.<\/p>\n<p>A grand prize of $20 million awaits the first XPRIZE team to send a spacecraft to the surface to the moon, have it travel at least 500 meters and transmit high-definition video and images back to Earth. But the feat has to be done by the end of 2017, and the team has to have a verified launch contract by the end of this month.<\/p>\n<p>Rideshare agreements such as the one between Hakuto and Indus let teams join forces to finance their spacecraft\u2019s journey to the moon, while leaving them free to compete on the lunar surface.<\/p>\n<p>Some of the 16 teams in the competition won\u2019t hit this month\u2019s deadline. One of the companies that had been favored to win, Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic, says that it\u2019s run out of time and is dropping out of the contest. It will continue to work on commercial moon missions, however.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe intend to fly our first mission when our customers and technology are ready in 2019,\u201d Astrobotic\u2019s chief executive, John Thornton, said in a commentary published by Space News.<\/p>\n<p>PTScientists, an XPRIZE team headquartered in Berlin, says it\u2019s in the process of getting a rideshare launch contract with Seattle-based Spaceflight verified by the XPRIZE organizers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Japan\u2019s Team Hakuto is testing two small rovers known as Tetris (left foreground) and Moonraker (right background). The rovers would ride along with Team Indus\u2019 spacecraft. (Team Hakuto Photo) The rocketeers on Japan\u2019s Team Hakuto say they\u2019ve gotten the Google Lunar XPRIZE\u2019s seal of approval on its plans for a mission to the moon. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2670,625,5461,5034],"class_list":["post-19128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-google-lunar-x-prize","tag-moon","tag-team-hakuto","tag-xprize"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19128"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19128\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}