According to Artemyev, the investment was made together with Moon Express co-founder and chairman Naveen Jain. Jain, the entrepreneur said, turned out to be his neighbor on Mosquito Island in the British Virgin Islands: “He persuaded me, knowing that I have a great passion for space, to invest in this company.”
What Moon Express Does
Moon Express is working on spacecraft for mining on the Moon and transporting space cargo. In 2016, the company received permission from the US government to send a private spacecraft to the lunar surface. According to Crunchbase, since its founding in 2010 Moon Express has raised $53 million.
Artemyev explained his interest in the project. According to him, there is no need to dig anything on the Moon: “the entire cosmic set of Mendeleev's periodic table falls there.” The entrepreneur claimed that it is enough to collect regolith and grind it to separate gold and diamonds. In addition, he called the Moon a source of rocket fuel: water is split into hydrogen and oxygen using solar panels, and storing these gases in the conditions of cosmic cold is cheap.
Contest Cancellation and Plans
Moon Express participated in the Lunar Xprize competition with a $30 million prize fund from Google. Participants were required to launch a research vehicle to the Moon by March 31, 2018. The company reached the finals, but Google canceled the prize fund because two months before the end of the competition no team was ready to complete the task.
According to Artemyev, after the cancellation of the contest the company has no specific plans for a lunar landing yet: “We need to be very careful with this, because we're not just going to light a rocket to land on the Moon.” First it is necessary to obtain flight contracts, Artemyev said, without specifying whether Moon Express has potential partners.
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