Indian space startup TeamIndus collaborates with Japan's Hakuto for their lunar launch!

Bengaluru: After landing a launch contract to land a spacecraft on the moon with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) earlier this month, the Bengaluru-based space startup TeamIndus announced a commercial agreement to carry a robotic rover developed by Hakuto, the Japanese team in the Google Lunar XPRIZE, to the moon aboard TeamInduss spacecraft in late 2017.

This is a first-of-its-kind collaboration of two private space enterprises competing in the Google Lunar XPRIZE, said TeamIndus.

"We are delighted to welcome Hakuto on board our spacecraft and look forward to working with them over the next few months," TeamIndus Fleet Commander Rahul Narayan said in a statement.

"After our PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) launch contract announcement, this is a reaffirmation of our technology preparedness as we continue to build towards becoming the first private entity to land on the Moon," Narayan added.

TeamIndus can carry up to 20 kg of payload of which the Japanese rover weighs 4 kg. "In addition to that we are carrying International University payloads and student experiments under our Lab2Moon initiative," Sridhar Ramasubban of TeamIndus noted.

The $30 million Google Lunar XPRIZE aims to ignite a new era of space exploration by lowering the cost and inspiring the imagination of the next generation.

The competition requires privately-funded teams to land their spacecraft on the surface of the Moon, travel 500 metres, and broadcast high definition video, images, and data back to Earth, the successful completion of which will win them the rpize.

Both TeamIndus and Hakuto had already demonstrated their technology by winning Milestone Prizes from Google Lunar XPRIZE in 2015.

TeamIndus won $1 million for demonstrating its landing technology and Hakuto won the $500,000 Mobility Prize for the robotic rover it developed.

Aside from the Japanese Rover, the TeamIndus spacecraft will also carry the indigenously designed and developed robotic rover, ECA, the company said.

TeamIndus said it would launch the spacecraft aboard the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) and would eventually soft-land on the lunar surface.

(With IANS inputs)