[meteorite-list] NASA Opens Cube Quest Challenge for Largest-Ever Prize of $5 Million

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2014 11:41:02 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <201411251941.sAPJf2lt019680_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

     
November 24, 2014
     
NASA Opens Cube Quest Challenge for Largest-Ever Prize of $5 Million

Registration now is open for NASA's Cube Quest Challenge, the agency's
first in-space competition that offers the agency's largest-ever prize
purse.

Competitors have a shot at a share of $5 million in prize money and an
opportunity to participate in space exploration and technology development,
to include a chance at flying their very own CubeSat to the moon and beyond
as secondary payload on the first integrated flight of NASA's Orion
spacecraft and Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.

"NASA's Cube Quest Challenge will engage teams in the development of the new
technologies that will advance the state of the art of CubeSats and
demonstrate their capabilities as viable deep space explorers," said Michael
Gazarik, associate administrator for NASA's Space Technology Mission
Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Prize competitions like this
engage the general public and directly contribute to NASA's goals while
serving as a tool for open innovation."

Challenge objectives include designing, building and delivering
flight-qualified, small satellites capable of advanced operations near and
beyond the moon. The challenge and prize purse are divided into three major
areas:

 * Ground Tournaments: $500,000 in the four qualifying ground tournaments
   to determine who will have the ability to fly on the first SLS flight;

 * Lunar Derby: $1.5 million for demonstrating communication and CubeSat
   durability at a distance greater than almost 2.5 million miles (4,000,000
   km), 10 times the distance from the Earth to the moon; and

 * Deep Space Derby: $3 million for demonstrating the ability to place a
   CubeSat in a stable lunar orbit and demonstrate communication and
   durability near the moon.

The Cube Quest Challenge seeks to develop and test subsystems necessary to
perform deep space exploration using small spacecraft. Advancements in small
spacecraft capabilities will provide benefits to future missions and also may
enable entirely new mission scenarios, including future investigations of
near-Earth asteroids.

"Cube Quest is an important competition for the agency as well as the
commercial space sector," said Eric Eberly, deputy program manager for
Centennial Challenges at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville,
Alabama. "If we can produce capabilities usually associated with larger
spacecraft in the much smaller platform of CubeSats, a dramatic improvement
in the affordability of space missions will result, greatly increasing
science and research possibilities."

All teams may compete in any one of the four ground tournaments. Teams that
rate high on mission safety and probability of success will receive
incremental awards. The ground tournaments will be held every four to six
months and participation is required to earn a secondary payload spot on SLS.

The Lunar Derby focuses primarily on propulsion for small spacecraft and
near-Earth communications, while the Deep Space Derby focuses on finding
innovative solutions to deep space communications using small spacecraft.
Together, these competitions will contribute to opening deep space
exploration to non-government spacecraft.

NASA's Centennial Challenges drive progress in aerospace technology -- of
significant value to the agency's missions -- and encourage broad-based
participation in aerospace research and development. The challenges help find
the most innovative solutions to technical challenges through competition and
cooperation. There have been 24 Centennial Challenges events since 2005. NASA
has awarded more than $6 million to 16 challenge-winning teams.

NASA's Centennial Challenges Program is part of the agency's Space Technology
Mission Directorate, which is responsible for innovating, developing, testing
and flying hardware for use on future NASA missions. During the next 18
months, the directorate will make significant new investments to address
several high-priority challenges for achieving safe and affordable deep space
exploration. For more information about the directorate, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/spacetech

The Centennial Challenges Program is managed at Marshall and the Cube Quest
Challenge is administered by the agency's Ames Research Center in Mountain
View, California. For more information on the Cube Quest Challenge, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/cubequest

To learn more about NASA's challenges and citizen science efforts, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/solve

-end-

David E. Steitz
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1730
david.steitz at nasa.gov

Janet Anderson
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256-544-0034
janet.l.anderson at nasa.gov
Received on Tue 25 Nov 2014 02:41:02 PM PST