2022 Challenge

The 2022 BIG Idea Challenge provided undergraduate and graduate students the opportunity to design, develop, and demonstrate robotic systems with alternative rover locomotion modalities for use in off-world extreme lunar terrain applications. This competition was an open innovation challenge with minimal constraints so that proposing teams could genuinely create and develop out-of-the-box solutions. Teams were invited to submit proposals for robots with new mobility solutions in operating scenarios that required access to extreme terrain categories, such as, but not limited to:

⇒ Fluffy/high-porosity regolith expected at the lunar poles
⇒ Steep, rugged slopes (state of the art for a wheeled rover is ~30 degrees)
⇒ Uneven terrain with possible ice content at the bottom of deep-shadowed craters
⇒ Subterranean features, such as caves, lava tubes, and pits

Through this challenge, NASA sought innovative ideas from the academic community for a wide range of alternative rover locomotion modalities to either enhance or replace traditional wheeled mobility systems that can expand access to extreme terrain on the Moon and (later) on Mars.

The Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-changing (BIG) Idea Challenge is an initiative supporting NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate’s (STMD’s) Game Changing Development Program’s (GCD) efforts to rapidly mature innovative and high-impact capabilities and technologies for infusion in a broad array of future NASA missions.

Relevant Links:

• Read the NASA Feature Story Announcing Forum Winners
• View the Livestream Recording of Team Presentations
• View Forum Photos
• View Forum Program Book
• View the Challenge Artwork