German Private Space Group Plans Moon Mission

[Yazata]

It's to be the world's first private Moon mission, by something called PT Scientists out of Berlin. It began as something called Part Time Scientists, a group of volunteer rocket scientists with day-jobs, trying to produce an entry for the Lunar X-Prize (for the first private moon rover). The time limit for the Lunar X-Prize came and went, but this team was so far into their project that they kept at it.

They have concentrated on designing and building a Lunar Lander that they call ALINA. Audi is building two small Lunar Rovers. ALINA will serve as communications relay link between the rovers and Earth. The whole thing is set to be launched from Cape Canaveral in 3'd quarter (Summer to Fall) 2019 by Space X. (Who will also be launching their first human astronauts in April and have another Falcon Heavy launch for the Air Force in 2019.) The plan is to land ALINA near the Apollo 17 landing site where Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt left their Moon Car in 1972. Presumably it's still sitting there so the rovers will photograph it. (Hah! Take that Moon landing conspiracy theorists!)

The Moon mission website:

https://mission-to-the-moon.com/

The company website:

https://ptscientists.com/

Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PTScientists

This is ALINA:

[Image: ALINA-Hero-Shot-1000px.jpg]

This is a rover (note the Audi ring logo):

[Image: ALQ-Rover-Small.jpg]

And...

[Image: PT-Scientists-Moon-rover-1-768x509.jpg]