Japan, Google head for the moon
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Probing X-Prizes Everyone is going to the moon. Japan has launched its first lunar probe, Selene, and the X-Prize foundation has persuaded Google to put up a $30m fund to reward any private enterprise that manages to land a probe in lunar-land.â¦
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Google Inc. , the world's biggest  Internet search engine, said on Wednesday it is opening the  Japanese-language version of its email service to anyone who  wants to sign up.
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A Japanese government panel has approved plans to send two spy satellites into Earth's orbit beginning next year, a media report said Wednesday.
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China will launch its first unmanned mission to the Moon later this year, a senior space official confirms.
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The contest calls for entrants to land a rover on the moon that can travel at least 500 meters and send data.
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TOKYO - It&#39;s an idea that was popularized by Princess Leia&#39;s plea for help in Star Wars: sending a 3-D hologram. Now, two Japanese scientists have developed technology they hope will one day turn the humble
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British and U.S. scientists said Friday they were exploring plans for a joint lunar mission that would use an orbiter to fire missile-like penetrators into the moon's surface.
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Japan aims to put global warming top of the agenda as it takes over the chairmanship of the G8.
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The founders of Google Inc., Sergey Brin and Larry Page, flew to Tokyo this week to set up a research and development center and other projects in Japan.
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China will launch its lunar orbiter Chang&#39;e 1 to explore the moon&#39;s environment and study the thickness of its soil by the end of 2007, according to a senior Chinese space expert in India.
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A US firm is proposing to use guided missile technology to make a precision landing on the Moon.
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(InfoWorld) - Google will pay up to $30 million in prize money to anyone able to land a privately funded spacecraft on the moon, because "it's cool," the company said on its blog. "More seriously, space exploration has a remarkable history of producing technological breakthroughs," wrote Alan Eustace, senior vice president of engineering, on Google's blog. He cited ablative heat shields, asteroid mining, invisible braces, and the Tang orange drink as past achievements, and said the prize money could lead to further developments in robotics, new space-age materials, precision landing control technology, "and who knows what else." Teams from around the world will vie for the Google Lunar X-Prize by building lunar missions complete with robotic rovers capable of roaming the surface of the moon for at least 500 meters and sending video, images and other data back to Earth, according to a statement from the X Prize Foundation. The X Prize Foundation is best known for another space competition, the $10 million Ansari X Prize for private suborbital spaceflight, won by SpaceShipOne three years ago. Google teamed up with the foundation on the lunar project. A grand prize of $20 million will go to the first team to land a privately funded spacecraft to the Moon and complete several tasks. Bonuses of up to $5 million can be earned from roaming an additional 5,000 meters on the surface of the Moon, finding and photographing man made artifacts left on the lunar surface, such as hardware from one of the Apollo missions, discovering water ice, and surviving a lunar night, a frigid affair lasting 14.5 Earth days, the foundation said. The remaining $5 million will be paid to the second place finisher in the competition. Images from the lunar landing will be available online at the Google Lunar X Prize Web site. There is a time limit to the competition. The value of the grand prize will drop to $15 million after Dec. 31, 2012, and on Dec. 31, 2014 the contest will end unless extended by Google and the X Prize Foundation.
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Text of report in English by Japanese news agency Kyodo  Tokyo, 10 September: The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency said Sunday it will launch a rocket carrying a spy satellite from Tanegashima Space Centre in Kagoshima Prefecture at 1:35 p.m. Monday.
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A device developed in Boulder has been selected by NASA to fly aboard a $400 million lunar-mapping mission set for launch in 2008.
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Japan's space agency launches its first lunar orbiter for a year-long mission to explore the moon.
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Teams from around the world will vie for the Google Lunar X-Prize by building lunar missions complete with robotic rovers.
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Google and the X Prize Foundation are sponsoring a space race to the moon, with $30 million in prizes being offered to spur interest.