Israeli Team Books Falcon 9 Launch for Google Lunar XPrize, Competition Deadline Extended
Israeli Google Lunar XPrize Team is First to Sign Launch Agreement for Private Mission to the Moon on SpaceX Falcon 9
“At a press conference held in Jerusalem today, alongside Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, and Bob Weiss, vice chairman and president of XPRIZE, SpaceIL announced a significant milestone in its race to the moon: securing a “ticket to the moon” on a SpaceX Falcon 9 launcher, with a mission scheduled for the second half of 2017. With this, SpaceIL becomes the first team to produce a verified launch contract in the US$30 million Google Lunar XPRIZE competition, and aims to accomplish not only the first Israeli mission to the moon, but also the world’s first private lunar mission.”
Marc’s note: With this contract SpaceIL now has until December 31, 2017 to win the competition. It is also good news for the remaining teams in the competition. The deadline for teams without a contract is now extended to December 31, 2016. They have to show a verified contract by that date to stay in the competition.
This news comes just over a week after Moon Express announced it had a launch contract. However, unlike SpaceIL, their contract has yet to be verified by the Google Lunar X Prize.
Previously:
Google Lunar X Prize to Verify Moon Express Launch Contract, SpaceRef Business
Chanda Gonzales, Senior Director, Google Lunar XPRIZE said on the contract issue “Our decision is based on a holistic assessment of whether the launch contract is genuine, whether there are any legal issues that might pop up, whether there are any obvious non-compliances with the rules, and whether a substantial commitment was made by both the team and the launch provider (e.g. non-refundable deposit of some certain minimum value).”
Astrobotic claimed to have secured a Falcon 9 launch in 2011 but has been unable to verify this to the GLXP in the subsequent 4 years. Moonex also claimed to be the first team to secure a launch but couldn’t confirm that with the GLXP foundation either. Both groups felt more compelled to spend time on press releases than to demonstrate what should be a modest amount of paperwork to get the deadline extended. Without SpaceIL’s announcement the deadline would have expired at the end of this year. MoonEx’s announcement is particularly troubling. If they actually have a launch contract, why not verify it first with the GLXP and THEN issue their press release?
Perhaps MoonEx got wind that SpaceIL’s announcement was coming, and threw together their press release first to steal their thunder. This seems like a very plausible explanation especially considering that MoonEx’s MX-1 spacecraft as currently described on their web site is too large to fly on the Rocket Labs rocket.
Here is some information that we hope helps clarify the speculations in the comments above and below of the sequence of events and the genuine nature of our launch contract announcement.
As reported, Moon Express has indeed signed a contract for three launches with Rocket Lab (actually 5, two of which are options… and of the first 3 launches, 2 are manifested for 2017). These launches of course go beyond the GLXP scope and evidence our commitment to build an ongoing commercial lunar business.
It is also true that we have NOT (yet) submitted our Notification of Launch Contract to the XPRIZE Foundation for verification under the Google Lunar X PRIZE. We were in mid-stride doing so when news emerged from XPRIZE (to all teams) that a GLXP team had already gone through the Notice of Launch Contract verification process to trigger the extension of the competition to 2017, and that all other teams have until the end of 2016 to submit a Notification of Launch Contract.
So the pressure was off for us to submit our Notice of Launch Contract in support of the competition. We had no data on whether there was an announcement being planned by XPRIZE or the verified team and decided to move ahead with our launch contract announcement independently, which is an important milestone to us and our investors and customers outside of the GLXP. (The GLXP is important to us too, and we applaud Google for funding it, but GLXP is one customer among many in our business activity, and our business plans are neither preceded by or dependent on the GLXP.)
We learned about the GLXP press conference announcement about SpaceIL at the same time that the public did and had no prior information about it from XPRIZE. (The GLXP teams were not given any advance notice of this announcement… )
Given many competitive and proprietary disclosures that are requested under the GLXP Notice of Launch Contract & verification process that impact not just Moon Express but our customers outside the GLXP, and since the competition extension has already been secured, it’s not clear that there is any reason to submit an official Notice of Launch Contract to GLXP at this time. We of course intend to do so before the end of 2016 as our agreement with our XPF/Google customer requires.
Please note that the GLXP Notice of Launch Contract is for “verification” of a contract, not a concept, meaning it’s a determination that a bona fide contract is in place, according to a number of tests as described by Chanda Gonzales in her quote, and it is not a “judgment process” of technical risk or viability. It’s about setting a rigid verification process to weed out “marketing claims” or publicity stunts. Moon Express is fully supportive of a rigid launch contract verification process.
Another note is that this “launch verification process” was only introduced relatively recently supporting a condition placed on the competition by Google that a launch contract be in place with at least one team by the end of 2015 for the competition to be extended to 2017.
As to the speculation that we raced to make a “publicity stunt” announcement in the days following a confidential advisory from XPRIZE to teams that a team had gone through the launch notice verification process, and did so by making a “phone call” to a launch provider requesting to publish what would be a lie from their CEO, well, no, we didn’t do that. Here is a pic of our CEO Bob Richards signing our launch contract with Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck prior to our announcement…
We hope this information and transparency helps account for the rationales and timeliness involved.
In other words: “..MoonEx got wind that SpaceIL’s announcement was coming, and threw together their press release first to steal their thunder. “
No. You apparently have problems reading the English language.
Joe Solarsystem, think you nailed it. Even if XPRIZE hadn’t told the rest of the teams, leading to Moon Express trying to steal the limelight, then Peter Diamandis would have known. It is plausible that he might have given Naveen (an XPRIZE trustee) and Bob (best friend) a heads up about it.
Except the GLXP DID tell the rest of the teams privately last week via email. Once you had that information, it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to guess when SpaceIL might be making their announcement. Then all you’d need is a quick phone call to Rocket Labs for permission to quote their CEO, and viola, a press release is out claiming you got there first. No contract required.