TeamIndus, India's first space start-up, drops out of moon race

New Delhi : India's first space start-up - TeamIndus - has unfortunately dropped out of global race for the Google Lunar X prize due to lack of funds. The private company had hoped to reach moon by December 31 this year.

A total of five teams were selected from across the world for the competition.

As per challenge, all the five participants were asked to put a rover on moon that can travel at least 500 meters and send back high definition videos to the Earth.

According to a report by NDTV, the sources have claimed that TeamIndus has dropped out as it was unable to mobilise the funds or technological resources to put the mission together. It was planning to build India's first privately funded spacecraft, which would have been able to achieve a soft-landing on moon, piggybacking on Indian space agency ISRO's PSLV rocket.

The report also mentioned sources from ISRO who said that they were ready to provide the rocket, but TeamIndus has failed to meet its contractual requirements and pay the instalments.

ISRO is planning to land on Moon and plant an Indian flag there in 2018 through Chandrayaan-2, which will be India's own mission.

A total of 33 teams had applied for the competition and by last year the number came down to five.

TeamIndus, selected to compete in the Milestone prizes, won the $1 million Milestone prize last year for their landing technology.

After TeamIndus has decided to drop out of the race the remaining four teams are Israeli non-profit SpaceIL, US firm Moon Express, Synergy Moon, an international collaboration of space enthusiasts and Japan's space robotics expert HAKUTO.