In Alabama, NASA's annual rover vehicle challenge drives inspiration for the moon and beyond
April 8 (UPI) -- NASA will kick off its 31st annual Rover Competition this week in Alabama, giving students from around the world a chance to show their engineering prowess in the space agency's "" obstacle course games.
On Friday, student teams will gather for NASA's annual Human Exploration Rover Challenge near the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville to compete at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center's Aviation Challenge course for events through Saturday.
Expected to participate at the free event open to the public: Some 35 colleges and universities, along with 38 high schools and two middle schools from 20 states, including Puerto Rico and 16 other nations.
The event is free and open to the public.
According to NASA, hundreds of students from around the globe will -- with their teams -- attempt to navigate NASA's self-described "complex" obstacle course by piloting a vehicle of their own design and production in the traditional human-powered rover division.
This year's competitive event expanded to include a remote-control division.
Rover excursions will be seen from 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. CDT each day, or until the last rover completes NASA's obstacle course.
On Saturday, NASA officials will host an in-person awards ceremony at 5:30 p.m. local time inside its Space Camp Operations Center at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, where multiple awards will be be given out to winners in the project's eight-month-long engineering design and construction.
NASA says the annual challenge, launched in 1994 and managed by its Marshall's Southeast Regional Office of STEM Engagement, "reflects the goals" of the Artemis campaign and is one of eight Artemis Student Challenges.
The goal is to "put competitors in the mindset of NASA's Artemis campaign," which aims to establish the first long-term presence on the moon and pave the way for eventual missions to Mars.
Last year, NASA's first mobile robotic lunar rover deployed with the help of commercial partners had a goal to locate lunar ice that might be similarly used to support long-term missions on the moon.
Teams pitch an engineering design for a lunar rover that would simulate an astronaut exploring the lunar surface while overcoming its various obstacles on a different planet in space.
The competition expanded in 1996 to include high school teams -- only to evolve again in 2014 as the NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge. It now has seen more than 15,000 student participants.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Miami Herald
14 minutes ago
- Miami Herald
How NASA plans to mine the Moon
By Dean Murray The United States has shown off how it plans to mine the Moon. Incredible scenes show NASA testing a vehicle designed to extract vital resources that could help humans live in the lunar environment or even on Mars. Engineers at Kennedy Space Center in Florida are experimenting with the RASSOR (Regolith Advanced Surface Systems Operations Robot) on a simulated lunar surface. RASSOR's counter-rotating drums dig up simulated moon dust to extract regolith, the loose, fragmental material found on the Moon's surface. The opposing motion of the drums helps RASSOR grip the surface in low-gravity environments like the Moon or Mars. On Tuesday (June 3), NASA said: "With this unique capability, RASSOR can traverse the rough surface to dig, load, haul, and dump regolith that could later be broken down into hydrogen, oxygen, or water-resources critical for sustaining human presence." The space agency is using the foundation of RASSOR's development to inform IPEx (In-Situ Resource Utilisation Pilot Excavator), a newer vehicle being prepared for a potential technology demonstration mission on the Moon. IPEx is still in the advanced development and testing phase and will improve on RASSOR with refinements in scale, modularity, and mission capability to support future lunar resource extraction missions. The post How NASA plans to mine the Moon appeared first on Talker. Copyright Talker News. All Rights Reserved.
Yahoo
36 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Massive planet discovered orbiting tiny star, puzzling scientists
Astronomers announced Wednesday they have discovered a massive planet orbiting a tiny star, a bizarre pairing that has stumped scientists. Most of the stars across the Milky Way are small red dwarfs like TOI-6894, which has only 20% the mass of our sun. It had not been thought possible that such puny, weak stars could provide the conditions needed to form and host huge planets. But an international team of astronomers have detected the unmistakable signature of a gas giant planet orbiting the undersized TOI-6894, according to a study in the journal Nature Astronomy. This makes the star the smallest star yet known to host a gas giant. The planet has a slightly larger radius than Saturn, but only half its mass. It orbits its star in a little over three days. The astronomers discovered the planet when searching through more than 91,000 low-mass red dwarfs observed by NASA's TESS space telescope. Its existence was then confirmed by ground-based telescopes, including Chile's Very Large Telescope. "The fact that this star hosts a giant planet has big implications for the total number of giant planets we estimate exist in our galaxy," study co-author Daniel Bayliss of the UK's Warwick University said in a statement. Another co-author, Vincent Van Eylen, of University College London, said it was an "intriguing discovery." "We don't really understand how a star with so little mass can form such a massive planet!" he said. "This is one of the goals of the search for more exoplanets. By finding planetary systems different from our solar system, we can test our models and better understand how our own solar system formed." Planet is unusually cold The most prominent theory for how planets form is called core accretion. The process begins when a ring of gas and dust — called a protoplanetary disc — which surrounds a newly formed star builds up into a planetary core. This core attracts more gas that forms an atmosphere, eventually snowballing into a gas giant. Under this theory, it is difficult for low-mass stars to host giant planets because there is not enough gas and dust to begin building a core in the first place. A rival theory proposes that these planets instead form when their protoplanetary disc becomes gravitationally unstable and breaks up, with the collapsing gas and dust forming a planet. However neither theory seems to explain the existence of the newly discovered planet, TOI-6894b, the researchers said. The planet also interests scientists because it is strangely cold. Most of the gas giants discovered outside our solar system so far have been what are known as "hot Jupiters," where temperatures soar well over 1,000 degrees Celsius. But the newly discovered planet appears to be under 150C, the researchers said. "Temperatures are low enough that atmospheric observations could even show us ammonia, which would be the first time it is found in an exoplanet atmosphere," said study co-author Amaury Triaud of Birmingham University. The James Webb space telescope is scheduled to turn its powerful gaze toward the planet in the next year, which could help uncover some more mysteries of this strange planet. Recent cosmic discoveries The spotting of the giant planet orbiting the undersized star marks the latest in a string of recent celestial discoveries. Last month, a U.S.-based trio hunting the elusive "Planet Nine" said they instead stumbled on what appears to be a new dwarf planet in the solar system's outer reaches. Named 2017 OF201, the new object is roughly 430 miles across, according to a preprint study, making it three times smaller than Pluto. Also in May, an international team reported that a newly found celestial object — perhaps a star, pair of stars or something else entirely — is emitting X-rays around the same time it's shooting out radio waves. Meanwhile, scientists announced recently that a new planetarium show about the Milky Way helped them unlock one of the solar system's many secrets. Experts at the American Museum of Natural History in New York were fine-tuning a scene about the Oort Cloud that's far beyond Pluto. Scientists have never glimpsed this region, but when museum experts projected their scene onto the planetarium dome, created using simulation data, they saw a spiral shape. Scientists had long thought the Oort Cloud was shaped like a sphere or flattened shell, warped by the push and pull of other planets and the Milky Way itself. The planetarium show hinted that a more complex shape could lie peek: Where is Jermain Charlo? Baldwin grills McMahon on unallocated funds for students, schools, approved by Congress Hegseth orders Navy to rename USNS Harvey Milk, Jeffries calls it "a complete and total disgrace"
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Why Redwire Stock Is Rocketing Higher Today
Redwire's suite of tools designed for construction on the moon and Mars were cleared by NASA. The company appears likely to play a key role in NASA's planned exploration of outer space, but the timeline for that exploration remains very much in doubt. 10 stocks we like better than Redwire › Space technology company Redwire (NYSE: RDW) said its lunar and Martian manufacturing technology has passed a key review, meaning it can be involved in future NASA projects. Investors are reaching for the stars, sending Redwire shares up as much as 21% at the open Wednesday and up 16% as of 11 a.m. Eastern. If the future does involve humanity setting up shop on the moon and exploring Mars, Redwire hopes to make the infrastructure that makes those endeavors possible. On Wednesday, the company said its Mason tool suite had passed NASA's Critical Design Review test and can now be used in future missions. Mason tools, designed to operate on the moon and Mars, can be used to build berms, landing pads, and roads. The approval is part of a $12.9 million NASA award to prototype Mason for moon activities. "We are proud to have successfully completed this exciting milestone and bring Mason one step closer to launch," Tom Campbell, Redwire's president of space missions, said in a statement. "Leveraging Redwire's unmatched in-space manufacturing experience, Mason technology is critical to enabling sustainable operations on the Moon and Mars surface." The announcement comes one day after Redwire announced a separate contract to conduct space-based research on a new cancer treatment using the company's in-space laboratory tech. There's every reason to be excited about Redwire. We appear headed toward a new golden age of space exploration, and unlike in the 1960s, private companies, including space stocks like Redwire, are likely to play a leading role. But there is also ample reason for caution. Redwire reported just $61.4 million in revenue in its most recent quarter, but it's valued by the market at more than $1.3 billion. Much of that valuation is based on potential, but Redwire is going to need a lot to go right, not all of which it can control. Among the potential questions: Will SpaceX and other contractors meet deadlines to build the rockets needed to make repeated visits to the moon possible? For those excited by the opportunity, it would be wise to make Redwire a small part of a well-diversified portfolio. Before you buy stock in Redwire, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Redwire wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $656,825!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $865,550!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 994% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 172% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 2, 2025 Lou Whiteman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Why Redwire Stock Is Rocketing Higher Today was originally published by The Motley Fool Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
