[meteorite-list] Be an Asteroid Hunter in NASA's First Asteroid Grand Challenge Contest Series

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 08:44:57 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <201403101544.s2AFivfs019683_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

March 10, 2014
     
RELEASE 14-071
     
Be an Asteroid Hunter in NASA's First Asteroid Grand Challenge Contest Series

NASA's Asteroid Data Hunter contest series will offer $35,000 in awards
over the next six months to citizen scientists who develop improved
algorithms that can be used to identify asteroids.

This contest series is being conducted in partnership with Planetary
Resources Inc. of Bellevue, Wash. The first contest in the series will kick
off on March 17. Prior to the kick off, competitors can create an account on
the contest series website and learn more about the rules and different
phases of the contest series by going to:

http://bit.ly/AsteroidHunters

Managed by the NASA Tournament Lab, the entire contest series runs through
August and is the first contest series contributing to the agency's
Asteroid Grand Challenge.

"For the past three years, NASA has been learning and advancing the ability
to leverage distributed algorithm and coding skills through the NASA
Tournament Lab to solve tough problems," said Jason Crusan, NASA Tournament
Lab director. "We are now applying our experience with algorithm contests to
helping protect the planet from asteroid threats through image analysis."

The Asteroid Data Hunter contest series challenges participants to develop
significantly improved algorithms to identify asteroids in images captured by
ground-based telescopes. The winning solution must increase the detection
sensitivity, minimize the number of false positives, ignore imperfections in
the data, and run effectively on all computer systems.

"Protecting the planet from the threat of asteroid impact means first
knowing where they are," said Jenn Gustetic, Prizes and Challenges Program
executive. "By opening up the search for asteroids, we are harnessing the
potential of innovators and makers and citizen scientists everywhere to help
solve this global challenge."

Gustetic and Jason Kessler, Grand Challenges Program executive, will host a
panel March 10 at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas titled
"Are We Smarter than the Dinosaurs?" to talk about how open innovation
can meaningfully engage people in discussions on and research into space
exploration and help us solve problems of global importance. They will
provide an outline of the Asteroid Data Hunter contest series and other
efforts to detect asteroid threats, as well as ideas for mitigating these
threats.

"Current asteroid detection initiatives are only tracking one percent of
the estimated objects that orbit the Sun. We are excited to partner with NASA
in this contest to help increase the quantity and knowledge about asteroids
that are potential threats, human destinations, or resource rich." said
Chris Lewicki, President and Chief Engineer of the asteroid mining company
Planetary Resources, Inc. "Applying distributed algorithm and coding skills
to the extensive NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey data set will yield
important insights into the state of the art in detecting asteroids."

Through NASA's asteroid initiative, the agency seeks to enhance its ongoing
work in the identification and characterization of near-Earth objects for
further scientific investigation. This work includes locating potentially
hazardous asteroids and identifying those viable for redirection to a stable
lunar orbit for future exploration by astronauts. The Asteroid Grand
Challenge, one part of the asteroid initiative, expands the agency's efforts
beyond traditional boundaries and encourages partnerships and collaboration
with a variety of organizations.

The algorithm contests are managed and executed by NASA's Center of
Excellence for Collaborative Innovation (CoECI). CoECI was established at the
request of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to advance
NASA open innovation efforts and extend that expertise to other federal
agencies. CoECI uses the NASA Tournament Lab (NTL) for its advanced
algorithmic and software development contests. Through its contract with
Harvard Business School in association with Harvard's Institute of
Quantitative Social Science, NTL uses the topcoder platform to enable a
community of more than 600,000 designers, developers and data scientists to
create the most innovative, efficient and optimized solutions for specific,
real-world challenges faced by NASA.

For more information on NASA's Center of Excellence for Collaborative
Innovation, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/coeci

For more information on Planetary Resources, Inc., visit:

http://www.planetaryresources.com

For more information on NASA's asteroid initiative, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/asteroidinitiative

-end-

Sarah Ramsey
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1694
sarah.ramsey at nasa.gov
Received on Mon 10 Mar 2014 11:44:57 AM PDT