Jul 22, 2010

New Partner Airborne Composites to Provide Advanced Composites for GLXP Mission


PRESS RELEASE  
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
   

Airborne Composites to Partner with
White Label Space Team in $30 Million Google Lunar X PRIZE
 
Noordwijk – The Netherlands, 1 July 2010, today White Label Space announces its latest Partner, Airborne Composites B.V. 

Airborne is a developer of advanced composite products and technologies for space and other industries, and will provide lightweight high performance composite structures for White Label Space's no-name robotic mission to land on the moon.

White Label Space is one of twenty one teams around the world competing in the Google Lunar X PRIZE, a competition for privately-funded teams to send a robotic mission to surface of the Moon and transmit a data package including photos and HD videos back to Earth.
 

With competences covering the full range of composite manufacturing techniques, as well as in-house engineering for product design and development, Airborne is an ideal partner for the White Label Space moon landing mission.
 

Image: Satellite CFEsat with 4 deployable panels built by Airborne, operational in orbit since March 2007

Minimizing the weight of space mission hardware is extremely important for mission success and this is especially true for Moon landing missions which require a very large change in velocity, or 'delta-V'. Advanced composite materials are an efficient and cost-effective way to make lightweight structures.
 

Sandor Woldendorp, Business Manager Space at Airborne, commented on the partnership: “Joining the White label Space team gives Airborne the opportunity to show our competences in design and build of composite structures for space applications. The Google Lunar X PRIZE offers a great challenge in terms of applying our space-proven composite technologies to fly on this moon exploration mission with White Label Space.”

Airborne is the ninth Partner to join the White Label Space team. The eight existing Partners include non-profit groups, private companies and universities. All the Partners bring unique and valuable capabilities to the White Label Space team.
 

About Airborne
Airborne Composites B.V. has business units in the Netherlands and Spain, where it develops and produces advanced composite products for a variety of markets including space, aeronautics, antennas, tubulars and machine components. Airborne operates state-of-the-art engineering and production facilities and has competences covering the full range of composites engineering development including technology research, product design, process engineering, qualification, maintenance and composite repair. The company turns innovative know-how into industrialized production, through integrated Design and Build programs and is dedicated to quality, customer satisfaction and cost-efficiency. In the rapidly evolving world of composites, Airborne is committed to developing new game-changing technologies, in materials, automated manufacturing processes and product design. [http://www.airborneinternational.com/]

About White Label Space
White Label Space joined the Google Lunar X PRIZE in May 2009 and is comprised of people from many nationalities, including England, Netherlands, Australia, United States, France, Japan, Spain, Brazil, Italy, Germany, Norway and Portugal. The team’s name originates from the concept of a “White Label” product which is a generic brand, developed by one company and then sold to another brand. White Label Space sees the Google Lunar X PRIZE as the beginning of the next wave of space exploration where the common person can become a contributor and not just a spectator. [www.whitelabelspace.com

About the Google Lunar X PRIZE
The Google Lunar X PRIZE is an international competition organized by the X PRIZE Foundation, which previously ran the Ansari X PRIZE for suborbital space vehicles. The Google Lunar X PRIZE calls for privately-funded teams to compete in successfully launching, landing, and then traveling across the surface of the moon while sending back to Earth specified photo and other data. The PRIZE will award US$20 million to the first team to land a robot on the moon that successfully travels more than 500 meters and transmits back high definition images and video. There is a $5 million second prize, as well as $5 million in bonus prizes for challenges such as traveling long distances, photographing man-made objects on the Moon, detecting water ice or surviving a lunar night. The $20 million first-place prize is available until December 31, 2013, and then it drops in value to $15 million until December 31, 2014. [www.googlelunarxprize.org]

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