In separate presentations at the International Moon Village Workshop and Symposium here on November 5, representatives of PTScientists and Team Indus said they are working on versions of landing modules originally intended to compete for the prize now expired.
Team Indus, one of the finalists of the award before it ended in March, says it has a "qualified" landing module in storage now and is working on a much larger version. That lander, originally designed for the Google Lunar X Award, is capable of placing 50 kilograms on the surface of the moon.
That payload capacity, said Rahul Narayan, founder of Team Indus, is probably too small for most commercial purposes. The company is now working on a much larger landing module, called Z-02, capable of placing 500 kilograms on the lunar surface. He said the lander would be compatible with several launch vehicles, including those operated by Arianespace, SpaceX and United Launch Alliance.
PTScientists plans to land near the Apollo 17 landing site on their first mission, including sending a rover to the Apollo 17 lunar rover.
Credit: PTScientists
Narayan did not give a timetable to build or launch that larger lander. He said that after his presentation, Team Indus would still like to fly the first module, perhaps after making changes to increase its payload capacity from 60 to 70 kilograms.
"We are changing our model from being a mission operator to being a supplier or partners to other people who want to operate missions," he said. "We see ourselves as the people who will build the technology, build the design, perform the qualification and then we can offer these services to international clients."
Narayan also suggested that Team Indus could find a way to participate in NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, where the agency plans to purchase payload space on commercial lander modules. The CLPS program requires major contractors and companies that manufacture "space transportation vehicles" to operate in the United States.
However, foreign companies can partner with teams led by the United States, as Japan's ispace has done in a CLPS proposal led by Draper. Narayan said Team Indus was partnering with a company in CLPS, but could not reveal details about that work at this time.
PTScientists, a German team that failed to make the cut in early 2017 for the five finalists after the X Prize Foundation concluded it did not have a valid launch contract, is still working on its first landing module. now scheduled for release at the end of 2019.
The company had grown considerably this year in preparation for the mission, said Torsten Kriening, the main commercial offering of PTScientists. The company had "survived" between 10 and 12 people for years, and grew to 20 earlier this year. PTScientists is now up to 65 people.
That first mission, which Kriening acknowledged could slip in 2020, will travel to the Taurus-Littrow moon region, in the vicinity of the landing place of Apollo 17. Two rovers on the landing will explore the region, including plans to examine the lunar rover that remained after the Apollo 17 mission, to see what condition the vehicle is in after almost 50 years.
The additional missions will follow a cadence of about once every 18 to 24 months, he said. A second mission will travel to the lunar south pole region, and subsequent missions will carry out experiments on in situ resource utilization.
PTScientists is compatible with a number of "blue chip" partners, including Audi, Vodaphone and Red Bull. "We can not do it alone, we are a small company," he said. Now, he said, non-space companies are approaching them about possible partnerships.
For example, rovers are "Audi Lunar Quattro" vehicles, and Audi has already used rovers in advertising. "We will have the fastest Audi on the moon," he said, "with a maximum speed of three and a half kilometers per hour."
This story was provided by SpaceNews, dedicated to cover all aspects of the space industry.
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