Moon Express conducted the first flight tests of its MTV-1X lunar lander test vehicle at the Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) in November and December of 2014. The testing was conducted in partnership with NASA through the Lunar CATALYST program in support of the company's goals of developing the world's first private lunar lander, and in pursuit of the Lander and Mobility Terrestrial Milestones Prizes of the $30M Google Lunar XPRIZE.
Moon Express was awarded $1M by Google for these lander test flights, taking home the only Lander System milestone prize awarded for a full lander system demonstration in the Lunar XPRIZE competition. The award announcements were made on January 26th at a private ceremony held at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, CA, which was attended by officials from Google and the XPRIZE Foundation.
"Moon Express has made singular progress in the Landing Milestone Prize category," said Robert K. Weiss, vice chairman and president, XPRIZE. "They were the only team to flight test a prototype of their lander. This is an essential step in the development of extra planetary spacecraft. Their innovative approach also utilizes a very compact spacecraft structure allowing for greater secondary launch opportunities."
The MTV-1X is a terrestrial test vehicle of our MX-1 spacecraft design - a compact donut-shaped green lunar lander design that uses solar energy for power and hydrogen peroxide as a fuel. The rocket exhaust is invisible super heated steam and completely environmentally friendly. Steam is visible only during the warm up "burp" sequences prior to main engine ignition.
During the vehicle flight testing, the Moon Express engineering team successfully proved out the fundamental design characteristics of the lander design, achieving a highly stable attitude control, solid propulsion performance, and flight profiles confirming the vehicles' landing and mobility capabilities consistent with the company's risk reduction goals and the requirements of the Google Lunar XPRIZE.
Flight testing operations at KSC/SLF is continuing in 2015.
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