The Google Lunar XPRIZE has awarded Andy, a four-wheeled lunar rover designed and built by Carnegie Mellon University, with a Milestone Prize for mobility. It is one of three Milestone Prizes awarded to CMU and Pittsburgh’s Astrobotic Technology, which have partnered in pursuit of the XPrize.

Milestone Prizes were awarded in three categories: mobility, lander and imaging, with Astrobotic winning for its Griffin lander and its imaging technology. A total of nine Milestone Prizes were awarded in the three categories; the Astrobotic/CMU teams was the only one to win prizes in each category.

“Andy has proven to be a tough, smart, sure-footed machine,” said William “Red” Whittaker, professor of robotics, who led a team of about 50 students, faculty and staff members from across the CMU campus to create the rover. “We’ve shaken it to simulate launch forces, driven it through moon dirt and exposed it to the extremes of lunar temperatures among many, many tests. Our team and our machine faced a rigorous evaluation by world-class judges and came out on top.”

CMU’s mobility prize included a $500,000 cash award. Astrobotic received $1 million for its lander win and $250,000 for the imaging category, for a total of $1.75 million in winnings.