ISRO’s First Sale of Its Launch Vehicle to a Private Entity, TeamIndus Lunar Mission

BeritaDEKHO - To win the international Google Lunar XPrize, a private team must build a rover, launch it to the moon, ensure it travels for at least 500 metres on the lunar surface and sends back hi-def images and videos – all by December 2017. And the only team from India and still in the race is cutting it real close. TeamIndus, based out of Bengaluru, India, hopes to make it in the last week of the last month of the contest onboard a PSLV rocket. The detail was finalised earlier this month, historic because it is ISRO’s first sale of its launch vehicle to a private entity.

“I think we’re just about two-thirds of the way through,” says Rahul Narayan, founder of TeamIndus. “We’ve got two dozen suppliers, most of them international. All of their material needs to come in at the same time, with the right testing and qualifications.” But even so, he’s very optimistic of TeamIndus’s chances. “First to the launchpad? Highly likely. First to launch? Very, very likely. First to land on the moon? I think so.”

TeamIndus was founded in 2010 to crack the XPrize. Today, it counts over 80 engineers and a dozen scientists among its employees. And it plans to add more once a new round of funding brings $10-15 million into their kitty. Their office is located in north Bengaluru, in a simple white building off a busy highway, obscured by tall tress and vines draping its walls. (source)

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