Dear friends and followers,

Barcelona Moon Team starts a new year in the GLXP competition. As you know we registered in April 2010, about two and a half years ago. We have been one of the lasts to do it. Nevertheless since then we achieved significant milestones both in the technical and the management areas.

During 2012 our technical team developed Phase A-B studies: GMV, general technical leader; EADS CASA Espacio, platform leader for the lander module; Galactic Suite Surface Operations, responsible for the lunar rover, and the National Institute of Aerospace technology, contributing with its expertise in small satellites. Together they identified all subsystems and equipment required, and they are now working along with their providers, including the Technical University of Catalonia, the University of Alcalá in Madrid, and other companies such as AD Telecom in Barcelona.

These studies, which set a baseline for a completely ITAR free lunar mission, were necessary to accomplish a major management milestone for the team: in August we signed the launch service contract to launch a Long March 2C CTS2 rocket. This signature is the culmination of a long term relationship with China Great Wall Industry Corporation that the team started back in 2010 in the Global Lunar Conference in Beijing. The two liquid stages of the LM2C and the solid upper stage of CTS2 will place the team’s lander and rover to translunar orbit from where our lander will take control to do any necessary corrections and capture a low lunar orbit.

I say long term relationship with CGWIC because this is a first mission for our industrial consortium: once we demonstrate our capabilities to land on the Moon, we’ll be ready to perform regular missions to the Moon at a very low cost. Indeed, for this mission we already established an unbeatable price of 1,35 million of Euros per kilogram left on the Moon surface. Each mission has a total of 40kg payload landed on the Moon. In this first mission, of course, part of this payload is dedicated to the GLXP rover, with 14kg of mass.

So, we are optimists in this new year 2013! This is a crucial year: there are still many hurdles to pass in this race, and times are tougher than ever for such challenges. However we are confident on our possibilities not only to win the competition but sowing the seed of a longer term business for lunar transportation (along with other destination).

All the Barcelona Moon Team wishes you a happy new year 2013! We will be glad if you accompany us in this amazing adventure. Keep tuned!

Xavier Claramunt
Leader of Barcelona Moon Team