Big Setback For India As TeamIndus Calls Off Country's First Commercial Mission To Moon Due To Fund Crunch

TeamIndus, a Bengaluru-based startup and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) have called off India’s first commercial mission to the moon, citing a shortage of funds.

Despite backing from Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani, Tata Group doyen Ratan Tata and Flipkart founders Sachin and Binny Bansal, TeamIndus failed to even muster half of the Rs 450 crore it required for the mission to the moon, reported Business Standard.

Team Indus — a finalist for the Google XPrize Lunar Prize — had to complete the mission of landing a rover and driving it for 500 metre on the moon surface by March 2018 and transmits high-definition video and images back to Earth. 

The deadline for the competition was pushed from December 2017 to March 31, 2018. The company said: "We won't be able to provide any comments at the moment," to an official query sent by Economic Times. 

The Google Lunar X prize competition is organised by XPRIZE, non-profit organisation, and sponsored by Google to land a privately-funded robotic spacecraft on the moon, the BS report added. 

TeamIndus was one of five teams selected to compete in the milestone prizes and successfully won $1 million as a milestone prize for its landing technology. 

As per the the XPrize rules, the private team could only seek 10% of its effort from any government agency. Team Indus had hired retired Isro scientists to guide its team to build a spacecraft and rover, but could not mobilise the Rs 2.2 billion to Rs 2.25 billion needed to hire a dedicated Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). 

The winning team gets an award of $20 million, reported The Times of India. Now, Israeli non-profit agency SpaceIL, United States firm Moon Express, Synergy Moon, an international collaboration of space enthusiasts, and Japan’s space robotics expert HAKUTO are in the race for the Google Lunar X Prize.

Recently, Sheelika Ravishanker of TeamIndus Foundation said at an event in Mumbai that TeamIndus plans to launch a crowdfunding programme for the moon mission.

According to the Toi report, the government was keen that ISRO's second mission to the moon, Chandrayaan-2, with a lander and rover, should land on the moon before TeamIndus. Chandrayaan-2 is slated for launch between March and April.