Google Lunar XPrize News Update: TeamIndus From India Will Help Fellow Competitor Team Hakuto From Japan

TeamIndus, the only Indian team participating in the Google Lunar XPrize competition, displayed sportsmanship and promised to help the Japanese team, Hakuto, in transporting its robotic rover to the Moon. The TeamIndus will be transporting the Japanese rover in its spacecraft along with its own indigenously designed robotic rover, where they will be competing against each other for $25 million prize.

The Google Lunar XPrize competition involves landing the spacecraft on the surface of the Moon, from where the robotic rovers will have to travel 500 meters and then broadcast live high-definition videos, images and data from the Moon. In addition to India and Japan, the teams from the USA and Israel are also in the competition.

The TeamIndus signed a commercial launch contract with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), which will provide help in transporting the Indian robotic rover named ECA -- 'Ek Chhoti si Asha' that means one small wish. The spacecraft carrying ECA will be launched in ISRO's PSLV, which will then deploy the spacecraft into the orbit, 800 kilometers above the Earth's surface. After that, the spacecraft will switch on its own engines and set course to the Moon.

After making a successful landing on Mare Imbrium on the lunar surfce, both rovers will be deployed and they will continue their missions separately and fight for the Google Lunar XPrize, Business Standard reported.

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

"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.

According to The Economic Times, TeamIndus is preparing for the Google Lunar XPrize with the funding received from privatey owned industrial giants from India, which include Ratan Tata (Tata Group), Nandan Nilekani (Infosys), Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal (Flipkart) and Venu Srinivasan (TVS Group) along with a few others.

Sridhar Ramasubban, Jedi Master of TeamIndus, said that, "TeamIndus can carry up to 20 kg of payload, of which the Japanese rover is 4 kg. In addition to that, we are carrying International University payloads and student experiments under our Lab2moon initiative."