​ITS NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge

Overview

Each year, the NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge features an engineering design challenge to engage students worldwide in the next phase of human space exploration. The annual event is a more complex follow-up to the successful NASA’s Great Moonbuggy Race. The competition challenges high school and college students to create a vehicle designed to traverse the simulated surface of another world. 

During its 20-year run, NASA’s Great Moonbuggy Race engaged more than 10,000 students and demonstrated that these budding scientists and engineers were capable of complex work. The NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge continues that tradition by providing an authentic engineering experience. Student teams design, build and test technologies that enable rovers to perform in a variety of environments. The Rover Challenge inspires participants to become the engineers to design NASA’s next-generation space systems. 

Explorers can learn from the challenges of our predecessors as we pursue future missions. In 1971, Alan Shepard, Stuart Roosa and Edgar Mitchell launched on Apollo 14, an extraordinary, complex mission to the Moon. Like other missions, their story is one of man’s battle against almost impossible odds, a story of highs and lows. 

While Roosa remained in orbit aboard the capsule, one task assigned to Shepard and Mitchell was to explore the Cone Crater to better understand the Moon’s early history. Scientists believed that rocks near the crater’s edge would yield some of the oldest material. At one point during the trek, Shepard’s heart rate reached 150 beats per minute (bpm). Both astronauts were stopping to take breaks, perspiring and gulping intakes of oxygen, and the internal temperature of their suits was rising dramatically. The crew had been gone from the lunar module Antares for two hours, and were running out of time and oxygen. They had difficulty navigating the slopes and fell 30 minutes behind schedule. As a result, they reached a point within 50 feet of the rim of the crater before turning back toward Antares. The crew gathered 99 pounds (45 kilograms) of lunar material and achieved the goal of reaching the vicinity of the crater. 

As in the past, teams design and create rovers capable of traversing a challenging exoplanetary-like landscape. These engineering challenges, however, are motivated by the assignment of mission objective tasks to be accomplished along the way. Just as in the Apollo 14 surface mission described above, teams have to make real-time decisions about which mission objectives to attempt and which to leave behind—all driven by a limited, virtual eight-minute supply of oxygen. Instead of time penalties, teams earn points as they progress through all stages of the competition. The competition course requires two students, one female and one male, to traverse a terrain of approximately 0.50 miles that includes a simulated field of asteroid debris—boulders from 5 to 15 inches across; an ancient stream bed with pebbles approximately 6 inches deep; and erosion ruts and crevasses of varying widths and depths. The challenge’s weight and time requirements encourage the rover’s compactness, light weight, high performance and efficiency. As part of the competition—before teams’ first time on the course—rover entries are tested to see that they would fit into a lander equipment bay, a maximum 5 feet long by 5 feet tall by 5 feet in volume. Teams earn points by assembling the rover in the allotted time; designing a rover that is lightweight; successfully completing course obstacles; performing tasks throughout the mission; and meeting pre- and post-challenge requirements. Each team is permitted two excursions: The greater score of the two excursions will be used for the final team score. 

NASA’s Human Exploration Rover Challenge aligns with the Artemis mission to return to and explore the Moon by 2024. The competition emphasizes designing, constructing and testing technologies, including tools, mobility devices and traversing in unique environments. The Artemis program will prepare us for the Moon and propel us on to Mars. NASA plans to send the first woman and next man to the Moon by 2024, and develop human presence by 2028. Like Artemis, NASA’s Human Exploration Rover Challenge sends one female and one male on the excursion to discover unknown terrains. Lunar science on the surface of the Moon will be conducted by 2024 with polar and non-polar landers and rovers to explore areas not investigated by Apollo. This student design challenge encourages the next generation of scientists and engineers to aid in the design process by providing innovative designs and unique perspectives. The challenge also continues the agency’s legacy of providing valuable experience to students who, someday, may be responsible for planning future space missions, including crewed missions to other worlds.