Moon Mining

Moon Express gets enough funding for maiden lunar flight.

15:37 17 January 2017

Florida-based Moon Express has been awarded £37 million in funding to build a lunar lander that will harvest the moon’s natural resources.

 

The company is one of the sixteen private enterprises competing for the Google Lunar XPrize, which awards £25 million to anyone who can land a rover on the moon.

 

In a statement, Moon Express co-founder and CEO Bob Richards said: “Our goal is to expand Earth’s social and economic sphere to the Moon, our largely unexplored eighth continent,"

 

He added that they will "enable a new era of low cost lunar exploration and development for students, scientists, space agencies and commercial interests.”

 

In August, Moon Express made headlines after it obtained permission from the US government to leave Earth and land on the moon.

 

The company is expected to launch its lunar rover from a site in New Zealand later this year.