Five finalists remain in Google Lunar X Prize competition to land a spacecraft on the Moon

The Google Lunar X Prize (or Moon 2.0) competition has just five teams left competing for the $30 million prize. The challenge? To land a spacecraft on the moon. The competition is sponsored by google and organized by a non-profit organization XPRIZE.

The teams left in the competition are Moon Express, Synergy Moon, SpaceIL, Team Indus, Team Hakuto. They have until December 31st, 2017 to launch a spacecraft to the Moon. The first one to do that will win the competition.

The people in remaining five finalist teams are from different countries around the world.

Note that the task here isn't to build a rocket that would land on Moon, but to initially secure an officially verified launch contract to fly on board some rocket. And then land the spacecraft safely, to run at least 500 meters on the lunar surface, and of course transmit HD-video.

The competition was announced in 2007. All together 16 contestants signed up. The challenge invited privately funded teams to be the first to land a robotic spacecraft on the Moon where it needs to be able to travel 500 meters as well as transmit HD video and images.