Spacewatch: Moon landing contest closes for lack of entrants

Google Lunar XPRIZE withdraws $30m prize for first robotic spacecraft touchdown by private firm as deadline defeats finalists

A lucrative competition to land a robotic spacecraft on the moon will end on 31 March this year without a winner. The Google Lunar XPrize promised to reward the first private company to make such a touchdown with $30m, a prize it was hoped would stimulate a new era of cost-effective and reliable access to the moon.

But the mission has proven tougher than anyone suspected. The competition was announced in 2007 but seemed destined to fold back in 2015 because of lack of progress.