By Jon Stewart BBC News, San Jose

The first team to be officially entered into a private race to the Moon has been announced.

Odyssey Moon hope to land a vehicle like this on the Moon

Odyssey Moon says it wants to "make history" by sending a robotic lander to the lunar surface without any government funding.

The company is competing for a share of a $30m prize offered by Google and the X-Prize Foundation, designed to stimulate research into low-cost space missions.

"It's amazing to think that over half of the world's population was not alive the last time that humans or even robots were on the surface on the Moon." said William Pomerantz, Director of Space Projects for the X-Prize Foundation.

"We are hoping that this prize will kick off an international race that will see humanity extending its influence out to the Moon. This coming decade is going to be all about the Moon - it's the hottest real estate in the universe right now," he added.

Prize fund

A top prize of $20m will go the first private company that lands a vehicle on the Moon and successfully completes a series of tasks including travelling across the surface for at least 500m and collecting scientific information.

There is a further prize of $5m for the second company to reach the Moon.

Teams can earn bonuses of $5m for completing additional missions like taking photos of man-made artefacts such as equipment left behind by the Apollo missions.

Once we have infrastructure on the Moon, from there we can get to anywhere in the Solar System Dr Robert Richards Odyssey Moon

Odyssey Moon is based in the Isle of Man and is the brainchild of Dr Robert Richards.

"Our goal is to first win the Google Lunar X-Prize, but in doing so to catalyse a new level of commerce and opportunity beyond Earth's orbit to the Moon" he said.

"I think the Moon is a beautiful place. It's an eighth continent floating just offshore. Sure, it's very harsh. It's very hot or very cold depending on where you are. But it is also an amazing platform" he continued.

"The Earth is big - it's hard and very expensive to get off. Once we have infrastructure on the Moon, from there we can get to anywhere in the Solar System with much less energy."

3D scanner

Odyssey Moon is not unveiling its full technical plans yet, but did demonstrate a model lander of the type that could be sent.

The model is equipped with a 3D laser scanner, designed to give the lander a full picture of its environment.

This will be the third prize offered by the foundation

The company is working with MDA of Canada, best known for building the robotic arm for the US Space Shuttle fleet, to build their vehicle.

Dr Christian Sallaberger, the vice-president of MDA, explained that the final design will be shaped by the restrictions of the competition.

"One of the requirements of the prize is to send a high definition video signal back to Earth. So that dictates part of the sensing system you will bring with you.

"You will also have an impact from that on the communications. You need to send those high definition signals back, so you will need a high bandwidth system. That is one of the technical challenges that we are addressing."

Countdown

The Lunar X-Prize is the third to be administered by the X-Prize foundation.

The first, won in 2004, was also designed to boost the private space industry.

The team behind the rocket plane SpaceShip One was awarded $10m after sending a man to an altitude of 100km and back, twice in one week.

Odyssey Moon unveiled their plans at the Space Investment Summit in San Jose, California.

Speakers were flanked by posters bearing the statement The Clock has Started.

They are working to a strict deadline - on 31 December 2014, the prize will be withdrawn.