The Israeli SpaceIL team has become the first of 16 teams involved in the Google Lunar XPRIZE competition to sign a contract for carriage to the moon.
The Israeli SpaceIL team has signed a contract and booked a flight for their lunar probe on a SpaceX Falcon 9 launcher. In the process, they became the first team to do so as part of the Google Lunar XPRIZE competition.
Signing such a contract is an important step in the $30 million contest and now the other 15 teams involved have until the end of next year to do the same.
In order to claim the $20 million first prize, a privately-funded team must build and land an unmanned spacecraft on the lunar surface.
Once there, the
