The X PRIZE Foundation has announced an official list of 29 registered teams - incl. 7 European companies - competing for the $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE to send a robot to the Moon that travels at least 500m and transmit video, images, and data back to the Earth.

This group of teams signifies this new era of exploration’s diverse and participatory nature as it includes a huge variety of groups ranging from non-profits to university consortia to billion dollar businesses representing 17 nations on four continents. The global competition, the largest in history, was announced in September 2007, with a winner projected by 2015.

Here is the official participants, which includes 7 European companies:

1. Odyssey Moon, Isle of Man
2. Astrobotic, USA
3. Team Italia, Italy
4. Next Giant Leap, USA
5. Team FREDNET, USA
6. ARCA, Romania
7. Moon Express, USA
8. STELLAR, USA
9. JURBAN, USA
10. Independence-X, Malaysia
11. Omega Envoy, USA
12. Synergy Moon, USA
13. EuroLuna, Denmark
14. SELENE, China
15. White Label Space, Netherlands
16. Part-Time Scientists, Germany
17. C-Base Open Moon, Germany
18. Selenokhod, Russia
19. Barcelona Moon Team, Spain
20. Mystical Moon, USA
21. Rocket City Space Pioneers, USA
22. Space IL, Israel
23. 23) Puli, Hungary
24. 24) SpaceMETA, Brazil
25. 25) Plan B, Canada
26. 26) Penn State Lunar Lion, USA
27. 27) Angelicum Chile, Chile
28. 28) Indus, India
29. 29) Phoenicia, USA

Source: Xprize.org