Exclusive: Seven teams have already applied to participate in the LUNAR X-PRIZE competition

This is what senior officials at the X Awards Foundation say in a conversation with our emissary in Hyderabad; Competitors will be able to purchase components from the shelf

Tal Inbar, Hyderabad

A little over a week ago, Google announced in cooperation with the X-RPIZE foundation a prize worth 30 million dollars to the private group that will send an unmanned spacecraft to the moon. Currently, seven teams from four countries have paid a thousand dollars as registration fees to the X-PRIZE Foundation, which are required for participating in the competition.

Today I met two senior officials from the organizers of the competition, Burton Alexander (senior manager, at the space prizes and wirefly X prize cup company and William Pomeranz, director of space projects at the X Prizes Foundation. After their presentation at the 58th Astronautics Congress held in Hyderabad, India, which received a lot of applause, I was able to speak with The two of them told me some new and interesting details about the LUNAR X PRIZE: among other things, they said that Elon Musk, founder and president of the Space X company, promised to give the teams participating in the competition a discount on the cost of launching the Falcon launchers developed by his company.

An important issue that was clarified in the conversation is that teams will be able to purchase space components off the shelf, despite the manufacturer's ownership of them, as long as these components are commercially available to all customers. This means that if an Israeli team wants to participate in the competition, it will be able to purchase components from Israeli space companies such as Mebat of the aerospace industry, Rafael, Rocker, Alup (Elbit) and more.

With Google to the moon