Nearly
40 years after Americans first set foot on the moon on July 20, 1969 with
NASA's historic Apollo 11 flight, a host of private rocketeers are hoping to
follow to win a $30 million prize. Here, SPACE.com looks at Team Italia, one of
17 teams competing in the Google Lunar X Prize:
What
began as a glimmer in the mind's eye for one robotics researcher has grown into
a national endeavor for Team Italia, one of 17 groups competing for the Google
Lunar X Prize.
"Team
Italia has evolved," said Piero Messina, president of the Naples-based
International Association for the Aerospace Culture (AICA) that is coordinating
Team Italia. Messina helped pull together all the major Italian aerospace and
engineering universities, as well as the two largest Italian aerospace
companies, to support the race to land
a robot on the moon by 2012.
The
idea to compete for the Google Lunar X Prize crystallized around the vision of Alberto
Rovetta, a professor of robot mechanics at Politecnico di Milano. Rovetta's
designs for lunar robots resemble skittering
spiders or crabs that could deploy as a swarm of mobile cameras and sensors
on both legs and wheels.
Such
unorthodox designs may help the team seize the Google
Lunar X Prize, which requires teams to land a robot on the moon, move at
least 1,640 feet (500 meters) and beam high definition views back to Earth.
However,
Messina noted that safe, time-tested technology remains crucial to Team
Italia's goal of meeting the Google Lunar X Prize objectives. The group also
wants to remain within a target "financial envelope" of $20-30
million, given that the X Prize awards $20 million for first place.
"New
technology would add to the cost, but it all depends what will be available to
us," Messina told SPACE.com. "Of course, we would love to test
new technologies and new robotic things."
Team
Italia will also likely focus on lower-cost alternatives to commercial launch
vehicles, such as the European Space Agency's Vega rocket that is already
slated to launch an experimental
reentry spacecraft in 2012.
The
team is currently occupied itself with organizing the principal players and
looking at preliminary mission design, never mind sizing up the competition for
the Google X Prize. "At the moment we are competing
against ourselves," Messina noted.
Many
of the competitors have made no secret about the challenges of attracting
funding, but Team Italia hopes that its national theme can carry the day and
attract sponsors even outside the aerospace industry. Messina compared their
private endeavor to those of sailing teams that attract national sponsors for
the America's Cup, and stated the goal of bringing "a new philosophy of
funding space missions" to Europe and Italy.
"What
we are trying to leverage is that most of aerospace community in Italy is
behind this project," Messina said. "We really want to give an
Italian flavor to the undertaking."
Despite
the emphasis on a private Italian undertaking, the team may ultimately partner
with the European Space Agency (ESA) and broader international groups. Messina
emphasized Italy's active role within ESA and cooperative activities with NASA.
"One
of reasons behind this is that Italy is playing a driving role in Europe in
exploration matters," Messina added. "This is meant to strengthen the
role and reputation of Italian aerospace community as far as exploration is
concerned."
advertisement
