News that a team of judges selected Astrobotic Technology Inc. and Moon Express Inc. as finalists in all three categories of a contest related to the Google Lunar X Prize is feeding speculation that the two U.S. teams are leading the pack of international competitors racing to the Moon. However, Andrew Barton, Google Lunar X Prize technical operations director, said it is too soon to identify likely winners in the $30 million race to send the first commercial spacecraft to the Moon by the end of 2015. "There are still 18 teams left from all over the world with a whole diversity of approaches," Barton said. "It would be premature to say which teams are still in the running." The Google Lunar X Prize announced Feb. 19 that an independent panel of eight judges selected Astrobotic, Moon Express, Japan's Hakuto, Germany's Part-Time Scientists and India's Team Indus to compete in the final phase of three separate competitions to win milestone prizes totaling $6 million. The milestone awards were added to the Google Lunar X Prize in November as a way to spur on competitors facing the daunting technical and financial challenge of sending a privately funded spacecraft to the Moon.
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机译：有消息称，有一组法官在与Google Lunar X奖有关的竞赛的所有三个类别中都选择了Astrobotic Technology Inc.和Moon Express Inc.作为决赛入围者，这使人们猜测，美国的两个团队正在带领国际竞争者争夺月亮。不过，Google Lunar X Prize技术运营总监安德鲁·巴顿（Andrew Barton）表示，现在尚无法确定在3000万美元的竞赛中可能的获胜者，以便在2015年底前将第一架商用航天器送上月球。在全世界范围内都有各种各样的方法，”巴顿说。 “现在说哪些球队还在竞选中还为时过早。” Google Lunar X Prize于2月19日宣布，由八名法官组成的独立小组选择了Astrobotic，Moon Express，日本的Hakuto，德国的兼职科学家和印度的Team Indus，参加了三个独立比赛的最后阶段，以赢得总计6美元的里程碑奖百万。里程碑式的奖项于11月被添加到Google Lunar X奖中，以刺激竞争对手，他们面临着将私人资助的航天器送入月球的艰巨技术和财务挑战。
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