Israeli nonprofit ‘SpaceIL’ has signed a contract to launch its robotic lunar lander towards the moon. There was a press conference held on Wednesday in Jerusalem to share the news in which it was announced that SpaceIL, a team of 16, would be participating in the Google Lunar XPRIZE (GLXP) competition to reach the contract landmark. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and XPRIZE President Bob Weiss also attended the conference.

X Prize Vice Chairman and President Bob Weiss said, "We are proud to officially confirm receipt and verification of SpaceIL's launch contract, positioning them as the first and only Google Lunar X Prize team to demonstrate this important achievement thus far”.

Weiss said along with SpaceIL, there are other 15 teams that need to produce their own verified launch contracts before the end of 2016. This would be an exciting space race, he added.

There are other teams too along with SpaceIL to take part in the GLXP contest. Astrobotic, a private firm headquartered in Pittsburgh, signed a contract with SpaceX in 2011 and Moon Express, headquartered in California, has announced its own launch contract with the spaceflight company Rocket Lab last week.

Astrobotic team associates said that they have prepared to hit their Griffin lander atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket probably by next year and Moon Express targets to launch its robotic MX-1 lander to the moon in 2017.

This GLXP was created in 2007 to support the private spaceflight industry, and help them to way in to the moon and other space destinations. Till now only three organizations, the governments of the United States, the former Soviet Union and China have succeeded in soft-landing a spacecraft on the lunar surface.

"The magnitude of this achievement cannot be overstated, representing an unprecedented and monumental commitment for a privately funded organization, and kicks off an exciting phase of the competition in which the other 15 teams now have until the end of 2016 to produce their own verified launch contracts," Weiss added. "It gives all of us at X Prize and Google the great pride to say, 'The new space race is on!'"