NASA and its partner, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, have announced that registration is now open for the Sample Return Robot Challenge, one of the agency’s Centennial Challenges prize competitions. The Rules and competition Team Agreement have been posted.
The competition is planned for June 2012 in Worcester,
The Sample Return Robot Challenge is to demonstrate a robot that can locate and retrieve geologic samples from a wide and varied terrain without human control. This challenge has a prize purse of $1.5 million. The objective of the competition is to encourage innovations in automatic navigation and robotic manipulator technologies. Innovations stemming from this challenge are intended to improve NASA’s capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation’s robotic technology for use in industries and applications here on Earth