Bengaluru based start-up to land a rover on the moon

8 years ago

Image Courtesy: homegrown

Bengaluru based aerospace start-up TeamIndus is the only Indian entry to the Google Lunar XPrize (GLXP) and will be competing with companies from 16 other countries to try and land their rovers on the moon. The first company to land a rover on moon will walk away with $20 million prize money.

The event is said to kick off by December 2017 and all participating teams must be at least 90 % privately-funded. However, reasonable commercial sales to government customers are allowed without any limit. According to the terms of the contest, companies will have to successfully land a rover on the moon and cover at least 500 metres on the moon’s surface, transmitting high definition video and images back to earth.

TeamIndus is a privately funded firm that consist of all-Indian team of 85 young engineers and over 15 ex-ISRO scientists. They have already won a $1 million prize for demonstrating its landing technology, which also automatically qualifies them for the final round.

According to a report by pc-tablet, the rover weighs 20 Kgs will be able to carry a 250-gram payload and it took the team five years to conceptualize the project. The rover is expected launch by July 2017.

“GLXP is not so much about the prize money, as it is about catalyzing private enterprise in space. Entrepreneurs coming into any sector have helped catalyze that sector–think of how the internet opened up possibilities after originally being a government project. The competition is pushing innovation in the sector. Over time, it will bring down the cost of launching satellites, flying to the moon and other celestial bodies while enhancing our capabilities here on Earth. The future of humankind is interplanetary. We are among a set of companies that are developing unique capabilities which will be increasingly in demand as we go into the future, “said Sheelika Ravishankar, TeamIndus Jedi-Master, Marketing and Outreach Strategy to homegrown.

All of the rover’s components will be manufactured in India, making it the perfect candidate for ‘Make-In-India’.

“The design for the onboard computer, power management system, the communication systems are all done in-house. However, just like any other space mission, components for all of the systems are being sourced from around the world. The complete integration of the Lander-Rover will be done here. We are writing our own flight and landing software too. The complete mission is indigenous with our young team of engineers working together with former ISRO scientists to design the spacecraft and rover which will be integrated in India,” said Ramnath Babu, one of the members of the team.

“We’re facing a number of challenges on multiple fronts but that again is the case with any moonshot and in our context, a literal one. Given that there isn’t too much publicly available information on performing a moon landing, we’ve pretty much have had to figure it out ourselves. Thankfully, we have the expert advice of ex-ISRO scientists who have built many of India’s most successful missions. This would be the first time an entire launch vehicle is being bought by an Indian private entity. We are working closely together with ISRO to make this a reality. You should hear from us soon,” said Justin Alva, who is part of the team.