An Israeli-built lander crashed onto the moon today during its final descent, bringing an unfortunate end to the first privately funded lunar mission. “We had a failure on the spacecraft,”… Read More
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket sent the Israeli-made Beresheet lunar lander on the first leg of its journey to the moon tonight, as a ride-along payload accompanying Indonesia’s Nusantara Satu… Read More
The managers of Israel’s first mission to the moon say their lunar lander has passed a crucial set of tests in preparation for February’s launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9… Read More
News Brief: SpaceIL, an Israeli team that was once a competitor in the now-defunct Google Lunar X Prize, says it will have its lander launched toward the moon in December. The lander… Read More
Less than a week after the $30 million Google Lunar X Prize officially expired, its organizers say they’re relaunching it as a non-cash competition to put a privately funded lander… Read More
The organizers for the $30 million Google Lunar X Prize competition acknowledged today that the award for a commercially funded lunar landing will go unwon, despite a decade’s worth of… Read More
Update for 10:54 a.m. PT Jan. 23: The managers of the Google Lunar X Prize competition acknowledge that the prize will go unwon. Previously: Who’s going to the moon? The… Read More
The Google Lunar XPRIZE finalists now have $4.75 million more to shoot for with the moon missions they’re planning, and more time to shoot for the moon as well. The… Read More
In two years, it will be the 50th anniversary of the historic Apollo 11 moon landing, and Astrobotic Technology wants to celebrate by going back — this time sending their robotic… Read More
Moon Express has laid out the plan it intends to follow to send probes to the surface of the moon and start bringing lunar samples back to Earth by 2020.… Read More
The organizers of the Google Lunar X Prize competition confirmed that five teams have been cleared to go after the $20 million grand prize, and doled out a total of… Read More
An executive at Moon Express has been widely quoted as saying his company has reached its funding goal for this year’s planned commercial mission to the lunar surface, thanks to $20… Read More
The rocketeers on Japan’s Team Hakuto say they’ve gotten the Google Lunar XPRIZE’s seal of approval on its plans for a mission to the moon. The XPRIZE verification of Team… Read More
A German team that’s going after the Google Lunar XPRIZE has secured a contract with Seattle-based Spaceflight to get its rover-carrying lander to the moon. PTScientists, based in Berlin, announced the deal today, and… Read More
BELLEVUE, Wash. – Moon Express says it has received preliminary clearance for the robotic lander that it plans to send to the moon next year, after a voluntary payload review involving… Read More
Moon Express, the lunar exploration venture backed by Seattle tech entrepreneur Naveen Jain, says it’s asking the Federal Aviation Administration to conduct a payload review of its spacecraft and plans… Read More
Film director/producer J.J. Abrams has been in on two of the biggest space-movie franchises ever, “Star Trek” and “Star Wars” – so maybe it shouldn’t be that surprising that he’s… Read More
Moon Express, the lunar exploration venture co-founded by Seattle entrepreneur Naveen Jain, has gotten the “all systems go” signal for its bid to put a robotic lander to the moon and… Read More
Israeli-based Team SpaceIL has signed up to launch a robotic lander to the moon on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in the latter half of 2017, thanks to an arrangement… Read More
Moon Express says it has reserved three lunar lander launches from a startup called Rocket Lab starting in 2017, with an eye toward putting robots on the moon’s surface and… Read More