More than 40 teams compete in the qualifying round of NASA’s Lunabotics Competition at University of Central Florida’s Exolith Lab in Orlando.
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. – University students from around the U.S. are competing in Florida this week to see how each team’s robot would fare on the surface of the Moon helping NASA’s Artemis astronaut missions.
NASA’s Lunabotics competitors from 44 university teams arrived in Orlando earlier this week at the University of Central Florida Exolith Lab for a qualifying round. They tested their robots in a giant pit of artificial lunar dirt.
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Ten teams have moved on to the final round of the Lunabotics Competition underway at The Astronauts Memorial Foundation’s Center for Space Education at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.
The finalists include teams from Michigan Technological University, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, the University of Alabama, University of Illinois at Chicago, Vanderbilt University, Purdue University, Iowa State University, University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the University of Utah.
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In the final leg of the competition, judges will rate the teams on their autonomous rovers’ ability to build a raised barrier, or berm, from lunar dirt and protect Artemis infrastructure on the Moon.
According to NASA, “such berms could defend against blast and ejecta during lunar landings and launches, shade cryogenic propellant tank farms, shield a nuclear power plant from space radiation, and provide other uses.”
This story will be updated with the winners of the Lunabotics Competition.