Soft landing on the moon an extraordinary challenge, says Google Lunar XPRIZE director
Wednesday, April 1, 2015 - 06:00
in Astronomy & Space
Chinese Chang'e 3 spacecraft on Dec. 14, 2013 became the first probe to soft land on the Moon since the Soviet Union's Luna 24 in 1976. Other missions could follow its footsteps soon as the commercial teams participating in the Google Lunar XPRIZE competition, gear up fiercely to conquer the Moon. But the lunar soft landing is a tough one, only achieved by three state-run space agencies so far. A truly exceptional and tricky endeavor. "It really is an extraordinary challenge to land softly on the Moon so we think that only a small number of teams will be able to do it," Andrew Barton, Director of Technical Operations at Google Lunar XPRIZE, told astrowatch.net.