No going for the moon: Xprize Foundation officially calls off lunar mission

Among the five finalists for the lunar mission was India's Bengaluru-based start-up Team Indus, which could not raise even half the Rs 4.5 billion required for the mission to the moon

Xprize Foundation, a non-profit organisation that designs public competitions to encourage technological development for human benefit, on Wednesday announced it was cancelling its lunar mission. This was after its finalists, including India's Team Indus, failed to raise funds for putting a rover on the moon.

“After close consultation with our five Google Lunar Xprize finalist teams over the past several months, we have concluded that no team will make a launch attempt to reach the moon by the March 31, 2018, deadline,” Peter H Diamandis, founder & executive chairman of Xprize & Marcus Shingles, and chief executive officer of Xprize, said