Note: I wrote this on my earlier blog hosted as http://parallelspirals.blogspot.com. I recovered the text from the WayBack Machine. This post appeared on February 18, 2011 as per the time stamp. I’m trying to collect here again all my old writings spread on various blogs.
An Indian team, called Team Indus has joined the Google Lunar X Prize. They have not mentioned much about themselves biographically or provided contact information of any kind. Their about page says:
Team Indus seeks to represent the aspirations of one of the world’s oldest civilizations and youngest population. Headquartered in New Delhi, India we are a team of professionals from Technology, Science, Finance and Media background all of whom have made a habit of pushing boundaries.
Team Indus is a for-Profit organization and plans for GLXP to be the first step towards establishing a Global Innovation brand. We plan to reward all contributors to our team by ensuring long-term commercial interest. We are in the process of setting up a separate non-profit education foundation that will work towards creating a space education & awareness campaign in India. All donations made to Team Indus will be directly passed onto this foundation. All articles, media generated in our pursuit of GLXP will be assigned to this foundation.
We have a few out-of-the-box theories on each phase of the mission, going radical on technology was the obvious choice given the late entry. Our initial planning suggests we will take about 3years to prepare for a potential launch, the launch in all likelihood will be done from India. Team Indus plans to attempt the Endurance and Distance bonus prizes.
It is a privilege to be part of GLXP’s exclusive group of teams, we are excited by the possibilities and eagerly look forward to putting up a good show!
They’re aiming for a launch by 2013-14 which is roughly the timeline that Chandrayaan-II is looking at for its launch! Chandrayaan-II, mind you has been in the works with help from Russia from 2009.
It is a challenge and one that possibly can be tackled. I’ll be following the team closely through their twitter account. I believe that even if they do not launch in the timeline they have set they must work towards launching because of the novelty of such a concept in India!
Parallel Spirals 