NASA Robotic Mining Competition May 19-23 at KSC

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER – University-level students and their robots from across the country will converge on Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex May 19-23 for the fifth annual NASA Robotic Mining Competition, formerly Luna Robotics. The event will be held in the Rocket Garden where guests can observe the robotic contest from covered bleachers around the glass-enclosed competition areas. Competition viewing is included in daily admission to the Visitor Complex.

More than forty teams of undergraduate and graduate students will compete with robots that they have designed and built to cross a simulated Martian landscape, excavate surface materials and deposit those materials into a collector bin within 10 minutes.

Teams will compete in up to five major competition categories including: on-site mining, systems engineering paper, outreach project, slide presentation (optional), and team spirit (optional). The team with the most points from all categories will win the grand prize, the Joe Kosmo Award for Excellence, and will receive a trophy, team certificates for each member, Kennedy Space Center launch invitations and a $5,000 team scholarship. Awards for other categories include monetary team scholarships, a school trophy or plaque, team certificates, and Kennedy Space Center launch invitations.

The robotic teams will practice and be inspected May 19 and 20. Official competition will begin May 21 and continue through May 23, when the winner will be announced. A detailed daily schedule of events is available is available here.

The technology concepts developed by the university teams for the competition conceivably could be used to mine resources on extraterrestrial bodies including Mars. The competition is also a forum for collaboration and innovation among students. NASA technical experts, sponsors and students engage in unique discussions about robotic mining.

Universities participating in the Robotic Mining Competition include the University of Central Florida, University of Florida, Virginia Tech, University of Alabama, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Florida Institute of Technology, Florida International University, NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering, Purdue, and Stanford University,