It’s another giant leap, says Moon Express co-founder
5th Aug, 2016
An Indian American entrepreneur has begun a countdown for launching a moon lander next year after
the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced it has approved his company’s venture.
Naveen Jain, the founder of Moon Express
Express, termed the U.S. government’s approval for the MX1-E
moon lander “another giant leap for humanity.”
Moon Express/8+6
The company was co-founded in 2010 by space visionary, Dr Bob Richards, Naveen Jain and
serial entrepreneur and artificial intelligence and space technology guru Dr Barney Pell.
The MX-1 will ride to the moon orbit on a space vehicle from Rocket Lab USA.
One of that company’s backers is Khosla Ventures created by Vinod Khosla, the venture
capitalist who is an Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi graduate and who co--founded Sun
Microsystems.
Moon Express CEO Bob Richards cited the discovery of water on the moon as an incentive for
lunar ventures.
The discovery was accomplished by the Indian Space Research Organization’s (ISRO)
Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft with ISRO’s Moon Impact Probe (MIP) and NASA’s Moon
Mineralogy Mapper (M3).
The recent discovery of water on the moon is an economic game changer for humanity’s
future. Water is the oil of the solar system and the moon has become a gas station in the sky.
Moon Express is the first private company to get government approval for a moon venture.
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The FAA described the MX-1E
1E as a spacecraft that can orbit to the moon, make a soft landing
on the lunar surface, and move on it by making “hops”.
Moon Express needed the FAA approval because the Outer Space Treaty requires private ventures to
be authorised by a government that has signed the treaty.
To be looked in UPSC Exams Paper 3 Topic: Awareness in Space
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