In 2016, moon rovers will take place on the moon

The Google Lunar X Prize program is being developed, and now several teams participating in the project are now working on the implementation of their plans to create a lunar rover. At the same time, two teams, Japanese and American, decided to work together so that three lunar rovers would immediately go to the Moon on one flight.

So, the company Astrobotic in December last year announced that its lunar rover, Andy, will go to the Moon with Falcon 9 from SpaceX. The flight is planned from Cape Canaveral, somewhere at the end of 2016. This month, the Japanese team, representing the company HAKUTO, agreed with the Americans to jointly send their lunar rovers (the Japanese have just two of them) to the moon.

The landing of the vehicles is planned in the area of ​​the Lake of Death. By the way, in this region there are caves, which are considered by scientists as the possibility of creating future settlements for lunar colonists. And now three spacecraft will land here (perhaps there will be more of them - the Astrobiotic company is not against delivering other moon rovers to the moon, provided that some of the costs are covered by partners).
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After disembarking on Earth’s satellite, the Lunokhods will arrange races, with a stop of 500 meters. Whoever first overcomes this distance, he will receive Google's top prize - the 20 million Lunar XPRIZE Grand Prize.

Interestingly, if the Japanese win, they share the winnings with the Americans (as part of the fare, you must understand). And if the Americans are winning, then they take the whole prize for themselves, and the Japanese receive an incentive prize in the form of the sympathies of the audience.

In 2014, both teams, Astrobiotic and HAKUTO, won the intermediate prize Google Lunar XPrize. The Japanese received a prize in the category of "mobility", and the Americans - in the categories of "the best landing system", "image transfer" and "mobility." Astrobiotic is a partner of NASA, the company's goal is to develop inexpensive ways to travel to other planets, research these planets and deliver resources.