CMU On The Moon

CMU's "Red Rover"

Carnegie Mellon University spin-off company Astrobotic Technology Inc. has signed a deal with SpaceX to launch its robotic rover into space as early as December 2013. SpaceX is an aerospace company formed by PayPal founder Elon Musk and makes Astrobotic the first competitor in the $30 million Google Lunar X-Prize competition to sign a launch contract.

The competition, announced in 2007, has 21 competitors all racing to see who can be the first to put a private venture robotic rover on the moon, travel 500 meters and transmit video, images and data back to Earth.
The December 2013 launch date on SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket is eight months later than Astrobotic said it would launch what it calls its Red Rover.  The delay is in part because of what "the customers" want.  To help pay for the mission, Astrobotic is selling 240 pounds of payload space on the rocket, and some of the customers have an interest in seeing the rover land on the moon at a certain time of year.

In addition, Astrobotic is negotiating with television companies for exclusive rights to broadcast the mission from the moon from Red Rover's high-definition, 3D cameras.  Because they are not NASA, they have the ability to do an exclusive deal.  So when the rover rolls out and turns on its camera, we here on earth will be able to see it with the clarity and depth perception of an Apollo astronaut.

Pretty cool stuff going on over at CMU!

CMU
Astrobotic Technology
SpaceX
Google Lunar X-Prize Competition