NASA seeks scholar entries for Human Exploration Rover Challenge

Aug. 15 (UPI) — NASA is accepting contest entries from scholar groups to design, construct and take a look at rovers on the moon and Mars.

In the Human Exploration Rover Challenge, college students must make fashions which can be able to going over a course whereas finishing duties for future Artemis missions, NASA said in a news release.

In the problem, groups design initiatives that pattern of soil, water and air over a half-mile course with a simulated discipline of asteroid particles, boulders, erosion ruts, crevasses and an historical streambed.

There are remote-controlled and human-powered divisions.

In the human one, groups will play the function of two astronauts in a lunar car. They should use a custom-built device to manually accumulate samples.

In remote-controlled, they’ll present pressurized rovers, which is able to include the mandatory instruments to gather and take a look at samples onboard.

“NASA’s Human Exploration Rover Challenge creates opportunities for students to develop the skills they need to be successful STEM professionals,” Vemitra Alexander, the exercise lead for the problem at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., stated. “This challenge will help students see themselves in the mission and give them the hands-on experience needed to advance technology and become the workforce of tomorrow.”

Entries will probably be accepted till Sept. 15 and the thirty second annual winners will probably be introduced at an in-person occasion April Sept. 11, 2026, on the U.S. Space & Rocket Center close to NASA Marshall.

Since this system started in 1994, greater than 15,000 have participated within the Rover Challenge.

Many college students now work at NASA or within the aerospace business.

In the 2025 contest, greater than 500 college students participated, representing 35 faculties and universities, 38 excessive colleges, and two center colleges in 20 states, Puerto Rico and 16 nations.

“Last year, we saw a lot of success with the debut of our remote-controlled division and the addition of middle school teams,” Alexander stated. “We’re looking forward to building on both our remote-controlled and human-powered divisions with new challenges for the students, including rover automation.”

The Artemis II is scheduled to achieve the moon no sooner than April 26, and a crewed Artemis III is deliberate for mid-2027 aboard the Orion spacecraft.

The final time people landed on the moon was 1972 on Apollo 17.