One giant leap for robots: NASA opens Space Robotics Challenge registration

By Dyllan Furness Published April 28, 2022

The first astronaut to set foot on Mars may be greeted by a robot. At least that’s NASA’s plan with its Space Robotics Challenge, a $1 million prize competition that asks roboticists from around the world to develop astronautic robots. Registration for the challenge opened to the public this week and runs until September 16.

Through the Space Robotics Challenge, NASA hopes to advance robotic capabilities so that machines can arrive at Mars prior to crewed missions, selecting landing sites, constructing habitats, and even commencing early scientific research.

Recommended Videos

The particular focus is on dexterity, according to NASA officials, in an effort to make the robots perform functions previously restricted to humans.

Robonaut5 — NASA

NASA

“Precise and dexterous robotics, able to work with a communications delay, could be used in spaceflight and ground missions to Mars and elsewhere for hazardous and complicated tasks, which will be crucial to support our astronauts,” Monsi Roman, program manager of NASA’s Centennial Challenges, said in a press release. “NASA and our partners are confident the public will rise to this challenge, and are excited to see what innovative technologies will be produced.”

Competitors are tasked with developing a virtual robot that’s modeled off of NASA’s Robonaut 5 (R5) and able to respond to a virtual scenario in which a dust storm has damaged a Martian habitat. In the aftermath of the storm, the robot is expected to realign a communications dish, repair solar panels, and repair a leak in the Martian habitat. Scoring is based on completion of these main tasks and a series of subtasks. Prizes, which range from $25,000 to $125,000, are guaranteed to the top four contenders.

But NASA’s isn’t preoccupied with outer space — the agency thinks this challenge will help advance robotics in ways that will benefit humanity here on Earth as well.

The competition itself will run from June 13-16, 2017. Winners will be determined by June 30.

Former Contributor

Dyllan Furness is a freelance writer from Florida. He covers strange science and emerging tech for Digital Trends, focusing…

Topics

Space

Lightsails have hit another speed bump on the road to interstellar travel

The coolest interstellar travel idea may get betrayed by the light pushing it

LightSail in Earth orbit

Laser-powered lightsails are one of the coolest answers to spaceflight. It might not be as sci-fi-sounding as a warp drive, but now, its practicality has also come under question. Using lightsails, a spacecraft could unfurl an ultra-thin reflective sail and let a powerful laser push it toward another star, without relying on fuel.

The tech was simple and elegant--except it's also more complicated than it sounds. A new preprint from researchers Chao Shen and Jiaze Li of the Harbin Institute of Technology suggests that relativistic lightsails may run into a hidden propulsion problem once they start moving extremely fast.

Space

The galaxy has an exoplanet size mystery, and NASA’s EVE mission wants to solve it

This planet-hunting mission wants to catch baby worlds before they grow up

Artist’s Illustration of Exoplanets Orbiting Barnard’s Star

Mankind venturing into space ended up creating more questions than it answered, and one of the dilemmas is related to the planet sizes. Astronomers have found plenty of rocky super-Earths and plenty of puffier sub-Neptunes, but far fewer planets with a radius of about 1.8 times Earth’s.

That gap is known as the radius valley, and a proposed mission called the Early eVolution Explorer, or EVE, wants to figure out why it exists. NASA has a simple plan: look at planets while they are still young. The mission concept, detailed in a new arXiv preprint and covered by Phys.org, would focus on newly formed star clusters to see what small planets look like before billions of years of evolution.

Cars

We just got a hot signal that a Tesla and SpaceX merger could happen, after all

Tesla

For years, the idea of Tesla and SpaceX becoming a single company has lived somewhere between ambitious business theory and Elon Musk fan fiction. The two companies already share DNA, leadership influence, engineering talent, and long-term goals. But every time the topic surfaced, it felt more like an interesting thought experiment than a realistic possibility. Now, one of the most important people at SpaceX has added fresh fuel to the conversation.

Speaking in a recent CNBC interview, SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell was asked about the possibility of closer ties between Tesla and SpaceX. Her response wasn’t a flat-out denial. In fact, she suggested that bringing the two companies together could make life a little easier for Musk. That may sound like an offhand comment, but coming from Shotwell, it’s noteworthy. She’s been at SpaceX since its earliest days and remains one of the company's most influential executives.