New Google Lunar X PRIZE Team: Space IL! February 11, 2011
Posted by Nick Azer in : Google Lunar X Prize, Google Lunar X PRIZE Team Profile, Israel, Space IL , add a commentA new team has joined the Google Lunar X PRIZE: Team Space IL!
The first Israeli team in the competition, they’re a non-profit effort launched by three engineers: Yariv Bash, Kfir Damari and Yonatan Winetraub.
Using a CubeSAT-esque approach, the team looks to land on the moon with an $8 million budget and donate all profits to Israeli science education:
“Unlike large satellites, we plan to build a vessel that will last only two weeks to a month in space. That helps us for two reasons: There won’t be a need for massive protection against the sun’s rays, and there won’t be a need for large battery power to drive the vessel when there is no sun …. Everything will be built from existing, cheap products.” -Yariv Bash; “Will Israel Soon Be Able to Plant Its Flag on the Moon?“, Guy Grimland, Haaretz.com
Israel as a country has a launch history—-namely Ofek reconnaissance satellites—and has an active space agency going.
Considering the Israeli infrastructure and the team’s shrewd CubeSAT inspirations, Space IL could prove to be an interesting dark horse in the competition :)
Google Lunar X PRIZE Roundup #41 February 6, 2011
Posted by Nick Azer in : Google Lunar X Prize, Google Lunar X Prize Roundup , add a commentThe Google Lunar X PRIZE is a $30 million competition challenging private space enterprises to land a rover on the Moon. Each week, I round up all the latest developments as the teams rocket forwards and upwards…
A seriously action-packed couple of weeks (Jan 15-31st) for the Google Lunar X PRIZE! New teams, gobs of funding, new partners and a whole lot more! Check it out:
- A new team was announced—team Space IL, a nonprofit effort from Israel! Check back here this week for a feature on them :)
- Long-quiet team Independence-X has returned to the competition!
- GLXP guy Will Pomerantz tweeted that there are more new teams to come!
- Team Next Giant Leap announced that $1 million+ in Draper funds will be contributed to their mission’s lunar lander! Also, team member Dr. Todd Mosher was announced as chair of a NASA National Academies Panel, and the team’s hopping rover concept was featured by Space.com!
- Team ARCA is building two wind tunnels, and added French mobile app company CRONOS Technologies as a partner, and the team was featured in an official GLXP video!
- Team Part Time Scientists posted a blog seeking your thoughts on surviving the lunar night, and they held two more fan friday Q+As while also being featured in an Evadot podcast!
- Team Rocket City Space Pioneers announced that Siemens is now a partner of the team! They also blogged about a successful outreach event, and a Q+A with middle schoolers :)
- Team Astrobotic blogged about the first iteration of their rover’s solar array!
- Blaze Sanders of team JURBAN sat down with Evadot for a podcast!
- Team White Label Space blogged about interaction with Google bigwig Vint Cerf, and were featured in an official GLXP video!
- Team Selenokhod was also featured in an official GLXP video!
- Team Euroluna posted a video update, and were featured in an official GLXP video!
- Team Synergy Moon featured an upcoming CPM TV rocket launch!
- The GLXP was featured as part of a great Space.com article on the state of the lunar base race :)
Prints on the Moon: 3-D Printing a Big Part of Space’s Future? February 1, 2011
Posted by Nick Azer in : 3-D Printing, private space, regolith , 1 comment so farA rapidly-developing new manufacturing technology is bringing a new dimension to the future of the moon:
The technology is called 3-D Printing; as you can see above, a 3-D printer doesn’t quite look like a traditional printer, but it does have some things in common.
A 3-D printer takes a three-dimensional computer-modeled image (instead of, say, a PDF) and, using a feedstock material such as plastic or metal, builds the entire object itself, layer by layer.
What really makes this technology stand out is cost-effectiveness. 3-D printers for the home are already under $1000, providing “manufacturing by mouse click” to a huge range of people (and companies).
3-D printers have made ultra-Rubik’s-Cubes, iPhone cases, furniture, buildings, food…and soon, lunar bases?
That sandstone structure was 3-D printed by D-Shape, a company with its eyes on the moon (with a little help from the European Space Agency). They’re not alone, either—a company called Made in Space was recently founded, in part by Jason Dunn (who recently joined Google Lunar X PRIZE team Moon Express), and is quickly picking up steam.
Lunar regolith, converted into lunar concrete, would be excellent as an in situ (and therefore, far less expensive) building material, and the 3-D printing process already can cut down construction costs significantly as it is.
The technology is proven, too—companies have been using large versions of 3-D printers for years, and it’s just now that the tech has reached a critical point of accessibility. Whether it’ll function well in the zero-g of space is an important question, but the technology is far ahead of other major lunar enablers like, say, space elevators or fusion power.
Companies like D-Space and Made for Space have hit the ground running, so it’ll be exciting to see where this technology goes from here. Moon colonization would be a heck of a lot easier with it, and the applications back here at home could be just as significant.