The FAA’s approval, which makes Moon Express the first private company to have clearance to land on Earth’s closest cosmic neighbor, will undoubtedly revolutionize the industry.
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Moon Express is now in competition for the Google Lunar XPrize, which promises to award a $20 million grand prize to the first team to successfully land a privately funded rover on the moon, travel 500 meters, and transmit back high definition video and images.
If successful, Moon Express would become the fourth entity in history to soft-land on the moon, after the first three which were all superpowers – the US, USSR and China.
The landmark decision by the United States government will send a private company to deep space for the very first time. With the green light, Moon Express will only have to ideal its spacecraft before launch; including addressing all challenges for its 2017 mission, The Verge reported.
Moon Express announced on Wednesday morning that it had been granted approval for its planned 2017 lunar mission.
A small startup has received the green light from the federal government to do something that NASA has not done for more than four decades: land on the moon.
“The moon says it has prepared a long, long dream for me, and I’m wondering what the dream would be like – would I be a mars explorer, or be sent back to earth?” “Space travel is our only path forward to ensure our survival and create a limitless future for our children”, Naveen Jain, co-founder and chairman of Moon Express, Inc., said in a statement. The company is competing in the Google Lunar X Prize competition, and must land its rover on the moon by December 31, 2017, to win.
“The recent discovery of water on the moon is an economic game changer for humanity’s future”, wrote Moon Express’ co-founder and CEO, Bob Richards.
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Rocket Lab will launch its electron rocket with a Moon Express rover on board. However, there are more significant things which Moon Express intends to do. However, exploitation of resources beyond Earth is not expressly forbidden, and the FAA’s ruling could herald a “Moon rush” over the next decade to both survey and potentially mine the lunar surface.
