2017 came and went with no team winning the Google Lunar XPRIZE. The expectation was that the competition would end at the end of 2017 but Google and The XPRIZE Foundation announced that as long as the team landed prior to March 31, 2018 it could still win. The previous cutoff in 2015 was that only those teams that had a verified launch contract prior to the end of 2016 would be allowed to move forward. The current competitors are: SpaceIL (spaceil.com), Moon Express (moonexpress.com), Synergy Moon (synergymoon.org), Team Indus (teamindus.in), and Hakuto (team-hakuto.jp).

As of publication there are only three months remaining for any of the teams to launch. But whether any team actually wins the prize is almost irrelevant at this point. The competition and the progress of the teams has stimulated national policy changes (see Space Directive 1 above), capital access (ispace, the parent company of Hakuto, recently raised a $90M Series A), and changes in laws from various countries around the world. The goal of XPRIZE competitions is to stimulate companies and markets so that they can become sustainable industries. If the current trajectory of lunar development continues the prize can be considered a success regardless of whether anyone wins.