Award Recognizes SpaceIL’s Successful Lunar Orbit and Landing Attempt, and Contributions to Private Space Exploration
LOS ANGELES-Saturday 13 April 2019 [ AETOS Wire ]
(BUSINESS WIRE)-- XPRIZE, the
global leader in designing and operating world-changing incentive
competitions, announced it will recognize SpaceIL’s achievement with a
$1 million Moonshot Award for its successful entry into lunar orbit and
for its attempt to land on the lunar surface – both of which are
“firsts” for a privately-funded entity, marking a new era in space
exploration.
SpaceIL’s
robotic lander, Beresheet, Hebrew for “Genesis,” came very close to
touching down on the Moon yesterday, but ultimately failed to soft-land
during its final descent. As it prepared for landing, Beresheet
experienced a main engine failure and lost communication with mission
control in Tel Aviv, suggesting the lander crashed into the surface.
“SpaceIL’s
mission not only touched the Moon, it touched the lives and hearts of
an entire world that was watching,” said Peter H. Diamandis, executive
chairman and founder of XPRIZE. “The legacy SpaceIL will have on the
future of the space industry is significant. This team’s ability to
build a lunar lander for $100 million and less than 50 engineers is
remarkable, a leap forward towards affordable and accessible space
exploration. Congratulations to Morris Kahn, their primary benefactor,
and the entire SpaceIL team for all their accomplishments -- we are so
proud.”
SpaceIL
was founded in 2011 by Yariv Bash, Kfir Damari and Yonatan Winetraub,
in order to compete in the $30 million Google Lunar XPRIZE. In 2015,
SpaceIL became the first team to announce a launch contract, and they
launched for the Moon on a SpaceX Falcon 9 on February 21, 2019.
“As
a testament to the team’s passion and persistence, we are presenting
this $1 Million Moonshot Award to the SpaceIL team at our annual
Visioneering Summit in October 2019, with the hope that they will use
these funds as seed money towards their education outreach or Beresheet
2.0, a second attempt to fulfill the mission,” said Anousheh Ansari,
chief executive officer of XPRIZE. “We are so proud and humbled to have
served as the catalyst for this mission, not just to further private
space exploration, but to increase access to education, career
opportunities, and role models in this field, something that is very
much in line with the values of the XPRIZE Foundation.”
The
Moonshot Award, inspired by SpaceIL, was created to recognize an XPRIZE
team achieving a “moonshot” technological feat outside the parameters
or timeframe of an XPRIZE competition, with the funds coming directly
from the XPRIZE Foundation. Future Moonshot Awards will be considered in
other domains, recognizing both literal and figurative moonshots.
About XPRIZE
XPRIZE
designs and operates global competitions to incentivize the development
of technological breakthroughs that accelerate humanity toward a better
future. Active competitions include the $20M NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE,
the $15M Global Learning XPRIZE, the $10M ANA Avatar XPRIZE, the $7M
Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE, and the $5M IBM Watson AI XPRIZE. For more
information, visit www.xprize.org.
Contacts
Eric Desatnik
eric@xprize.org
310-741-4880
eric@xprize.org
310-741-4880
