With a nearing deadline, Penn State’s Lunar Lion team has announced its withdrawal from the Google Lunar XPRIZE competition.
The decision came after the university brought in a review panel — consisting of specialists in areas of planetary landing systems, program formulation and space exploration — in order to evaluate the progress of the team’s preparation for the competition as well as the Lunar Lion team’s program overall.
The group joined the Google Lunar XPRIZE competition back in 2011 as the challenge’s only university-led team. The competition set a challenge for all participating teams to attempt to construct a privately-funded spacecraft that would meet multiple exploration and imaging tasks and land on the moon by Dec. 31, 2015.
The team was highly praised by the panel for the hands-on experience offered in safety measures, media relations, propulsion, and especially for the clear determination and passion shown for the team’s goal of landing their spacecraft on the moon. However, even with all the progress made, the panel decided that the team would unfortunately not be able to obtain that goal by the competition’s given time constraint.
“Being a part of the XPRIZE was exciting and inspiring to our students,” said Michael Paul, Director of Space Systems Initiatives, at Penn State’s Applied Research Lab. “But, the competition required us to work on a timeline that just wasn’t feasible for space exploration, at least not yet.”
Recommendations and advice for the program were also given to the team by the panel. With the help of the panel, the team is in the process of creating a class offering credit for its contributing students.
“I was so impressed with caliber of people who came to be part of the review panel,” said Paul. “It was the exact kind of sharp, skeptical, and inquisitive group you need.”
Although the team has withdrawn from the competition, it has no plans to slow down its plans for space exploration. The program is working to finish the final integration of its rocket-powered prototype and hopes to conduct protocol flight tests by the end of the semester, said Paul.
With the help of sponsor support and donations, the team has grown into a program filled with hundreds of students with studies in areas ranging from public relations to business to physics.
“We want to continue to recruit students who want to be part of this side of Penn State and grow them into leaders. Our students are not just getting jobs, they’re getting the jobs they want,” said Paul. “There is no end in sight for this program. We want NASA to say Penn State is the place to go.”
