Tag: Centennial Challenges

NASA Seeks Innovators for Lunar Waste Competition 

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4 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) By Savannah Bullard  A new NASA competition, the LunaRecycle Challenge, is open and offering $3 million in prizes for innovations in recycling material waste on deep space missions.  As NASA continues efforts toward long-duration human space travel, including building a sustained human presence on the Moon through its Artemis missions, the agency needs novel solutions for processing inorganic waste streams like food packaging, discarded clothing, and science experiment materials. While previous efforts focused on the reduction of trash mass…

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NASA Awards $1.5 Million at Watts on the Moon Challenge Finale

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Team H.E.L.P.S. (High Efficiency Long-Range Power Solution) from The University of California, Santa Barbara won the $1 million grand prize in NASA’s Watts on the Moon Challenge. Their team developed a low-mass, high efficiency cable and featured energy storage batteries on both ends of their power transmission and energy storage system. Credit: NASA/GRC/Sara Lowthian-Hanna NASA has awarded a total of $1.5 million to two U.S. teams for their novel technology solutions addressing energy distribution, management, and storage as part of the agency’s Watts on the Moon Challenge. The innovations from…

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NASA’s Lunar Challenge Participants to Showcase Innovations During Awards

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The Sun rises above the Flight Research Building at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. Credit: NASA Editor’s note: This media advisory was updated Friday, Sept. 13, 2024, with a correct phone number for the media contact at NASA’s Glenn Research Center. NASA‘s Watts on the Moon Challenge, designed to advance the nation’s lunar exploration goals under the Artemis campaign by challenging United States innovators to develop breakthrough power transmission and energy storage technologies that could enable long-duration Moon missions, concludes on Friday, Sept. 20, at the Great Lakes Science…

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NASA Awards $1.25 Million to Three Teams at Deep Space Food Finale

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Interstellar Lab, a small business comprised of team members from France, Texas, and Florida, took home the $750,000 grand prize for their food system, NUCLEUS, which uses a multi-pronged approach to growing and harvesting food outputs for astronauts on long-duration human space exploration missions. Credit: OSU/CFAES/Kenneth Chamberlain NASA has awarded a total of $1.25 million to three U.S. teams in the third and final round of the agency’s Deep Space Food Challenge. The teams delivered novel food production technologies that could provide long-duration human space exploration missions with safe, nutritious,…

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NASA Invites Media, Public to Attend Deep Space Food Challenge Finale

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NASA’s Deep Space Food Challenge directly supports the agency’s Moon to Mars initiatives. Credit: NASA NASA invites the media and public to explore the nexus of space and food innovation at the agency’s Deep Space Food Challenge symposium and winners’ announcement at the Nationwide and Ohio Farm Bureau 4-H Center in Columbus, Ohio, on Friday, Aug. 16.  In 2019, NASA and the CSA (Canadian Space Agency) started the Deep Space Food Challenge, a multi-year international effort to develop sustainable food systems for long-duration habitation in space including the Moon and Mars.…

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NASA Invites Media to Watch Agency’s Break the Ice Lunar Challenge Final Phase

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3 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) NASA’s Break the Ice Lunar Challenge will conclude with a final competition, open to the public and media, this June in Huntsville, Alabama. NASA NASA will announce the winners of the final phase of its Break the Ice Lunar Challenge on Wednesday, June 12 at Alabama A&M University’s (AAMU) Agribition Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The challenge aims to develop new technologies that could support a sustained human presence on the Moon by the end of the decade. Media and…

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NASA Taps Alabama A&M University to Host Break the Ice Lunar Challenge

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4 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Alabama A&M University Agribition Center will host the final Break the Ice Lunar Challenge featuring a large dirt-based indoor arena on 40 acres of land, offering plenty of green space to build Break the Ice’s complex testing infrastructure. Photo Courtesy: Alabama A&M University Extension By Savannah Bullard NASA has selected Alabama A&M University’s Agribition Center in Huntsville, Alabama, to host the final level of the agency’s Break the Ice Lunar Challenge, using indoor and outdoor space to ground test…

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