Back in September, Google amazed everybody when it announced it would sponsor with no less than $30 million any entrepreneur team that would be able to “re-conquer the Moon.” Google is a tough company and no one doubts its ability to cover brand new fields. Still, the Moon is quite a large “field” to cover and thus we were all surprised by the huge tech company’s partnership with the X Prize Foundation, which promotes private space exploration.

However, it was Google’s decision and the space exploration field will always need lots of money, no mater whether they come from Internet ads or from the rich people’s pockets.

So, after about two months since the Lunar X Prize was announced, the first private team eventually showed up and claimed Google’s $30-million award. Coming from the Isle of Man, Odyssey Moon represents an international partnership and it was the first team to pay the $10,000 registration fee and qualify to compete.

Google’s X Prize promises $20 million to the first team to land a privately-funded craft on the Moon, move it at least 500 meters and send “Mooncast” video back to Earth. The team could as well win bonus prizes by completing additional tasks on the Moon.

Odyssey Moon’s craft will be “a small robot”, according to the organization’s chairman, Ramin Khadem, also a founder of Inmarsat. Ramin Khadem explained that his team’s mission is modest if compared to manned space travel funded by national governments, but that Odyssey Moon will “complement, not compete, with China, Russia and the US.”

"The moon is the eighth continent and we need to exploit it in a responsible way. We want to win the Google prize and, if we do, that will be gravy. But either way we are going to the moon,” Khadem also said.