Masten Space Systems were declared winners of the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander X-Prize Challenge following a competition in the Mojave Desert last week involving several teams of space entrepreneurs.

Under the terms of the competition, teams had to launch a rocket and then simulate a lunar landing before refueling and returning to lunar orbit.

Entries were required to ascend to a height of 50 meters, before landing safely on a replica lunar surface after a minimum of three minutes flying time.

The X-Prize foundation is also running a competition in conjunction with Google, offering 20 million dollars to the first privately funded team that lands a robot on the Moon and transmits image and data back to Earth.

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