{"id":11303,"date":"2025-09-09T08:28:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T08:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/11303\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T08:28:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T08:28:09","slug":"nasa-launches-2026-lunabotics-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/11303\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA Launches 2026 Lunabotics Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"

As college students across the country embark upon the academic year, NASA is giving them something else to look forward to \u2013 the agency\u2019s 2026 Lunabotics Challenge. Teams interested in participating can submit their applications and supporting materials through NASA\u2019s Stem Gateway portal<\/a> beginning Monday, Sept. 8.<\/p>\n

Key dates and challenge details are available in the 2026 Lunabotics Challenge Guidebook<\/a>. Once all applications and supporting materials are received and evaluated, NASA will notify the selected teams to begin the challenge.<\/p>\n

Student teams participating in this year\u2019s challenge will create robots capable of building berms out of lunar regolith \u2013 the loose, fragmental material on the Moon\u2019s surface. Structures like these will be important during lunar missions as blast protection during lunar landings and launches, shading for cryogenic propellant tank farms, radiation shielding around nuclear power plants, and other uses critical to future Moon missions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are excited to continue the Lunabotics competition for universities as NASA develops new Moon to Mars technologies for the Artemis program,\u201d said Robert Mueller, senior technologist at NASA, as well as co-founder and chief judge of the Lunabotics competition. \u201cExcavating and moving regolith is a fundamental need to build infrastructure on the Moon and Mars and this competition creates 21st century skills in the future workforce.\u201d<\/p>\n

An in-person qualifying event will be held May 12-17, 2026, at the University of Central Florida\u2019s Space Institute\u2019s Exolith Lab in Orlando. From this round, the top 10 teams will be invited to bring their robots to the final competition on May 19-21, at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex\u2019s Artemis Arena in Florida, which has an area filled with a lunar regolith simulant. The team scoring the most points will receive the Lunabotics Grand Prize and participate in an exhibition-style event at NASA Kennedy.<\/p>\n

By encouraging innovative construction techniques and assessing student designs and data the same way it does its own prototypes, NASA casts a wider net to find innovative solutions to challenges inherent in future Artemis missions, like developing future lunar excavators, in-situ resource utilization<\/a> capabilities, and living on the Moon or Mars. With its multidisciplinary approach, Lunabotics also serves as a workforce pipeline, with teams gaining valuable hands-on experience in computer coding, engineering, manufacturing, fabricating, and other crucial skills, while also receiving technical expertise in space technology development.<\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s Lunabotics Challenge, held annually since 2010, is one of several Artemis Student Challenges<\/a>. The two-semester competition provides U.S. college and technical school teams an opportunity to design, build, and operate a prototype lunar robot using NASA systems engineering<\/a> processes. Competitions help NASA get innovative design and operational data, reduce risks, and cultivate new ideas needed to return to the Moon under the Artemis<\/a> campaign to prepare for human exploration of Mars.<\/p>\n

To learn more about Lunabotics, visit:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/learning-resources\/lunabotics-challenge\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As college students across the country embark upon the academic year, NASA is giving them something else to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11304,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[13808,6282,9084,13804,13805,13806,111,139,69,13807,13809,13810,147,392,13811,13812,13813],"class_list":{"0":"post-11303","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-crowdsourcing-news","9":"tag-artemis","10":"tag-challenges","11":"tag-for-colleges-universities","12":"tag-kennedy-space-center","13":"tag-learning-resources","14":"tag-new-zealand","15":"tag-newzealand","16":"tag-nz","17":"tag-prizes","18":"tag-project-management-systems-engineering","19":"tag-robotics","20":"tag-science","21":"tag-space","22":"tag-stem-engagement-at-nasa","23":"tag-student-opportunities","24":"tag-telerobotics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}