In late 2017 or early 2018, one or more privately funded and operated spacecraft will land on the moon and explore it. They’ll be competing for the Google Lunar XPRIZE, a competition started almost 10 years ago (and ending soon!), that will award up to $30 million dollars in prizes for lunar exploration. Just 5 teams remain in the competition, all with a very different plan for how to conduct a robotic mission to the moon.