Future lunar missions could be miniature, as NASA names the winner of a new great challenge.
In April, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) issued a public challenge, called “Honey I Shrunk the NASA Payload,” after the hit 1989 movie “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.” The public challenge required people to design instruments that could one day be small payloads for future missions to the moon. And on July 14, JPL announced the miniature winners.
“The ideas generated by the community were outstanding,” Sabah Bux, a JPL technologist, said in a statement. “These designs could help NASA maintain a human presence on the moon and enable new science.”
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This challenge was inspired by the need to reduce the amount of payload weight for future missions, as large and heavy loads require a lot of fuel (and therefore money) to get from Earth to the moon.
By developing small payloads, researchers can work using smaller (and often more mobile) platforms that would cost less to launch, making research more accessible. The challenge required loads no greater than about the size of a bar of soap: loads no greater than 4 inches by 4 inches by 2 inches (10 centimeters by 10 centimeters by 5 centimeters) weighing no more than 0.8 pounds. (0.4 kilograms).
The winning design for a category in the challenge, called “Lunar Resource Potential”, was “Puli Lunar Water Snooper”, designed by the team at Puli Space Technologies based in Budapest, Hungary, which won a prize of $ 30,000. The instrument is designed to map hydrogen to the moon from a small rover to aid in the search for water ice.
In another category, “Lunar Environment,” he won the design known as “Sun Slicer,” a miniature X-ray spectrometer from Team Sun Slicer, which also took home a prize of $ 30,000.
This challenge was funded by NASA’s Lunar Surface Innovation Initiative, which exists within the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD); The challenge was managed by the NASA Tournament Lab, which is part of the STMD Awards and Challenges program.
You can read about all the winners and designs that won honorable mentions here.
Email Chelsea Gohd at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter @chelsea_gohd. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
