The Jet Propulsion Laboratory Thursday announced the holding of the “Honey, I Shrunk the NASA Payload” competition, in which NASA will seek designs for instruments that could help support a human presence on the Moon but be small enough to fit into a payload the size of a bar of soap.
“A new JPL-led challenge is seeking ideas for scientific instruments that could fit inside a tiny payload no bigger than a bar of soap,” the Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a statement.
“Future exploration of the Moon and beyond will require tools of all shapes and sizes — from sweeping orbiters to the tiniest of rovers. In addition to current planned scientific rovers like the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER, NASA could one day send even smaller rovers to help scout the Moon’s surface. These tiny robots would provide mission flexibility and collect key information about the lunar surface, its resources and the environment. The data collected by these rovers would be helpful for future lunar endeavors and NASA’s Artemis program.’
The JPL said it is running a public prize competition to design miniaturized payloads for future Moon missions. “The ‘Honey, I Shrunk the NASA Payload’ challenge is seeking instrument designs that could help support a sustained human lunar presence, demonstrate and advance the use of resources found on the Moon, and enable new science.”
Existing payloads are often big, heavy and require a lot of power. The payload designs sought for this challenge are required to be similar in size to that of a bar of soap at a maximum of 3.9 inches by 3.9 inches by 1.9 inches and weigh no more than 0.8 pounds (0.4 kilograms), according to the JPL statement.
“Smaller payloads are game-changing,” said Sabah Bux, a JPL technologist. “They will allow us to develop technologies to do more prospecting and science on smaller, more mobile platforms.”
Competition participants will have an opportunity to win a share of $160,000 in prizes across several categories. JPL is working with the NASA Tournament Lab to execute the challenge on the heroX crowdsourcing platform. Submissions will be accepted through June 1, 2020.
For more information about the challenge and how to enter, visit: www.herox.com/NASApayload
The challenge is funded by NASA’s Lunar Surface Innovation Initiative within the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. The initiative champions technologies needed to live on and explore the Moon. NASA Tournament Lab manages the challenge. The program supports the use of public competitions and crowdsourcing as tools to advance NASA R&D and other mission needs.