We are proud to announce the winners in the $160,000 Challenge, Honey, I Shrunk the NASA Payload!
This challenge tasked innovators from around the world to propose miniaturized payloads, similar in size to a bar of soap, to make lunar exploration using micro-rovers more effective.
By the submission deadline, we received 132 entries from 29 countries. In total, NASA is awarding $160,000 USD across 14 different entries and recognizing an additional 3 entries with an honorable mention award. You can view more details on the winning entries here. We will also be hosting a panel discussion with NASA and the two first-place winners - register here.
Prizes are awarded in two categories, based on the two strategic knowledge gaps presented in the challenge.
The award recipients in the Lunar Resource Potential category are as follows:
- First Prize, $30,000
- Puli Lunar Water Snooper by Puli Space Technologies Team
- Second Prize, $15,000)
- Permittivity Analysis of Regolith using SansEC by Nova Rover Payload Team
- KSat Stuttgart e.V. MICU 3D mineral seeker by KSat Team
- M-ELVIS, Locating and Mapping Lunar Volatiles by Curtis Purrington
- Third Prize, $5,000
- Adaptable science box: Magnetometer+Rad detector by Space Initiatives Inc
- LAMPER by Amin Aminaei
- Moon soil resources from seismic waves by Drive Me Through The Moon Team
- Raman-based Mineral Classification Payload (RMCP) by Top Raman NASA Payload Team
- M.E.G.A.M.A.N. by Big Brain, Little Payload Team
- Honorable Mentions
- Miniaturized Payload for Regolith Characterization by Padua Team
- Lunar Vision. Coloring the moon! by Team Stardust
- RICO by RICO Team
The award recipients in the Lunar Environment category are as follows:
- First Prize, $30,000
- Sun Slicer - Miniaturized XRAY Spectrometer by Team Sun Slicer
- Second Prize, $15,000
- LEA (Lunar surface Energetic neutrals Analyzer) by Bhardwaj Shastri
- Third Prize, $5,000
- Novel Fibber Bragg Grating seismometer by Relative Dynamics
- Lunar Radiation Characterization by Christian Haughwout
- Laser Based Dust Detector for the Lunar Surface by Ryan Smith
We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who entered the challenge. While we were only able to recognize a small fraction of those who entered, there were so many other insightful solutions, we are confident that many of the participants will do great things in the future. Thank you all for helping make this challenge a huge success.
We would also like to thank all of our supporters, partners, judges, and anyone else who in any way contributed to our competition community. Without you, we would not have had the challenge that we did.
