The X Prize Foundation has announced that ten teams will compete in the 2008 Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge, a $2 million competition requiring a vehicle to simulate trips between the moon's surface and lunar orbit.

The X Prize Foundation manages the challenge for the NASA Centennial Challenges Program, which provides the prize purse for the competition. The challenge, which is also funded by the New Mexico Spaceport Authority and the State of New Mexico, will take place at Holloman Air Force Base in Alamogordo, New Mexico, on October 24-25. The competition normally takes place during the X Prize Cup, which has been postponed until 2009.

Teams competing in this year's challenge include Armadillo Aerospace (Mesquite, Texas), BonNova (Tarzana, California), Paragon Labs (Denver, Colorado), Phoenicia (Emeryville, California), TrueZer0 (Chicago, Illinois), Unreasonable Rocket (Solana Beach, California), and four teams that have requested anonymity until sixty days before the challenge. A Webcast of the competition will be featured on the X Prize Foundation site.

"Once again, we have excellent teams prepared to compete in the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge," said Peter H. Diamandis, chairman and CEO of the X Prize Foundation. "We are excited to see new teams join the competition, and I am confident that we will give away prize money this year."