by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will collaborate on a mission to the moon, analyze data from an Israeli-French Earth observation satellite, and launch a joint education satellite under a landmark agreement signed last week to cooperate on a range of space projects, the Israel Space Agency (ISA) announced.

The two nations will collaborate on Genesis 2, an $100 million Israeli mission to launch an orbiter to the moon and deploy landers at two different locations on the lunar surface. The mission, which is to be half funded with foreign contributions, is scheduled to launch in 2024.

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 1, 2015 (Moon Express PR) — Moon Express, Inc. is one step closer to becoming the first private company to land a spacecraft on the Moon. The company today announced it signed a contract with Rocket Lab on Sept. 30 to launch three Moon Express robotic spacecraft to land on the Moon starting in 2017. Moon Express is the first company in history to secure such a contract.

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VIRUS-1 thruster test (Credit: Team Synergy Moon)

SAN FRANCISCO (Team Synergy Moon PR) — 2015 started with a BANG! as the Google Lunar X PRIZE awarded $6Million in Milestone Prizes.  Team Synergy Moon has also been busy, with lots of development work happening at Interorbital Systems for our launch infrastructure, launch vehicle and lunar lander.

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Video Caption: Based on excerpts from a CNN interview, Moon Express co-Founder and CEO Bob Richards explains the big picture of lunar exploration and the importance of the Moon to humanity’s future.

On the Astrobotic website, David Gump writes:

The third prototype for Astrobotic Technology’s lunar robot has innovations that will enable it to survive the blistering heat at the Moon’s equator, which is the robot’s destination in May 2011 when it will visit the Apollo 11 site.
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