Centennial Challenges to get more funding?

[neilh]

Looks like the new Centennial Challenges announcement is 10am EST tomorrow: http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/467171main_OCT_Industry_Forum_July_13_Agenda_v12.pdf

[Danderman]

http://www.parabolicarc.com/2010/07/13/nasa-announces-challenges-nanosats-night-rovers-sample-return/

"NASA announced three new Centennial Challenges Tuesday, with an overall prize purse of $5 million. NASA’s Centennial Challenges are prize competitions for technological achievements by independent teams who work without government funding.

“NASA sponsors prize competitions because the agency believes student teams, private companies of all sizes and citizen-inventors can provide creative solutions to problems of interest to NASA and the nation,” said Bobby Braun, the agency’s chief technologist. “Prize competitions are a proven way to foster technological competitiveness, new industries and innovation across America.”

The Nano-Satellite Launch Challenge is to place a small satellite into Earth orbit, twice in one week, with a prize of $2 million. The goals of this challenge are to stimulate innovations in low-cost launch technology and encourage creation of commercial nano-satellite delivery services.

The Night Rover Challenge is to demonstrate a solar-powered exploration vehicle that can operate in darkness using its own stored energy. The prize purse is $1.5 million. The objective is to stimulate innovations in energy storage technologies of value in extreme space environments, such as the surface of the moon, or for electric vehicles and renewable energy systems on Earth.

The Sample Return Robot Challenge is to demonstrate a robot that can locate and retrieve geologic samples from wide and varied terrain without human control. This challenge has a prize purse of $1.5 million. The objectives are to encourage innovations in automatic navigation and robotic manipulator technologies."

[bodge]

The Night Rover Challenge is to demonstrate a solar-powered exploration vehicle that can operate in darkness using its own stored energy. The prize purse is $1.5 million. The objective is to stimulate innovations in energy storage technologies of value in extreme space environments, such as the surface of the moon, or for electric vehicles and renewable energy systems on Earth.

Since hearing about this I've been wondering - what exactly is the benchmark for duration in unmanned electric ground vehicles?

Has anyone ever run an electric R/C car for a full 24 hours on Earth?

This is the best I could find online...

http://gizmodo.com/5322339/tricycle-robot-going-for-rc-distance-record-against-all-odds

Not exactly a lunar capable rover!!

In terms of a manned vehicle, this appears to be the current record:

http://sanyo.com/news/2010/05/24-1.html

...no solar...just a boat load of batteries!



I would appreciate if anyone else has any other benchmarks to compare this challenge against. As a start I'm thinking purely electric land vehicles (no electric plane records) for duration only. 

-Bodge

[A_M_Swallow]

I have been wondering whether a night was Earth type darkness of order(12 hours) or a Moon type darkness of order(2 weeks).

[bodge]

I have been wondering whether a night was Earth type darkness of order(12 hours) or a Moon type darkness of order(2 weeks).

I imagine in order to be worth a $1.5 million purse, it's going to be closer to the lunar 2 week long night. Otherwise, for a typical earth night the challenge wouldn't be all that difficult.

Some other questions I have..

-Will there be conditions mimicing the moon's extreme environments? Thermal vacuum runs? At the least, extreme heat or cold runs on Earth (Death Valley vs. Arctic)

-Will the rover be allowed to be remotely operated, or will it need to be automated? I'm thinking R/C, since an automated rover challenge is being done separately.

-Power? Does all the power collecting means need to be onboard, or would a solar charging station be allowed?

I'm anxious for the release of more details / rules later in the year. This is a challenge that I am very interested in participating in, having already some experience in solar energy collection and energy storage. I'm already pushing towards getting some data on how far/long off-the-shelf electric R/C cars can travel..then coupling in trickle charging...building up storage capacity....improving efficiencies (better motors, controllers) and going from there. I figure starting some exploratory work now is a good start. Worst case, I could end up building my own solar powered lawn mower if the challenge isn't pursued in the final FY 2011 budget.

Maybe I'll start a new thread dedicated to this potential challenge...

UPDATE:

New thread, specific to Night Rover posted here: http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=22293.new#new


-Bodge