Robots - Blog Posts

Send Your Name to Jupiter

You’re invited to sign your name to a poem written by the U.S. Poet Laureate, Ada Limón. The poem connects two water worlds — Earth, yearning to reach out and understand what makes a world habitable, and Europa, waiting with secrets yet to be explored.

The poem will be engraved on Europa Clipper, along with participants' names that will be physically etched onto microchips mounted on the spacecraft. Together, the poem and names will travel 1.8 billion miles to the Jupiter system.

Signing up is easy! Just go to this site to sign your name to the poem and get on board. We also have a Spanish-language site where you can send your name en español: Envía tu nombre aquí.

The Europa Clipper launch window opens in October 2024, but don’t wait – everyone’s names need to be received by December 31 this year so they can be loaded onto the spacecraft in time. We hope you’ll be riding along with us! Follow the mission at europa.nasa.gov.

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Hurry! You Can Catch a Ride to Jupiter with NASA

Well, at least your name can.  

One of the planet Jupiter’s largest and most intriguing moons is called Europa. Evidence hints that beneath its icy shell, Europa hides an ocean of liquid water – more water than all of Earth’s oceans combined. In 2024, our Europa Clipper robotic spacecraft sets sail to take a closer look…and when it launches, your name can physically be aboard! Here’s how: 

NASA’s Message in a Bottle campaign invites people around the world to sign their names to a poem written by the U.S. Poet Laureate, Ada Limón. The poem connects the two water worlds — Earth, yearning to reach out and understand what makes a world habitable, and Europa, waiting with secrets yet to be explored.

The poem will be engraved on Europa Clipper, along with participants' names that will be physically etched onto microchips mounted on the spacecraft. Together, the poem and names will travel 1.8 billion miles to the Jupiter system.

Signing up is easy! Just go to this site to sign your name to the poem and get on board. You can send your name en español, too. Envía tu nombre aquí.

The Europa Clipper launch window opens in October 2024, but don’t wait – everyone’s names need to be received this year so they can be loaded onto the spacecraft in time. Sign up by Dec. 31, 2023.

We hope you’ll be riding along with us! Follow the mission at europa.nasa.gov.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

From Racing Suits to Robotic Gloves: How to Gear Up with NASA Technology

Did you know you are surrounded by NASA technology? From your apartment building to the doctor’s office, and even in your cellphone camera, there is more space in your life than you think!

In the latest edition of Spinoff, we are introducing dozens of new ways NASA technology could cross your path. Whether you need an extra “hand” on the production line or a weatherproof jacket, check out how to gear up with technology made for space.

Grip-Strengthening Glove

Robots are crucial to exploring space and other planets – they could even support astronauts and form the advance party for places humans have yet to reach. But the human machine is hard to replicate.

A collaboration with General Motors helped us build Robonaut 2 – and the design for this robot’s hands has been adapted into a robotic glove that helps manufacturing employees, such as automobile workers, reduce injuries and improve quality control.

The Swedish company Bioservo used the Robo-Glove technology to create the world’s first industrial-strength robotic glove for factory workers who perform repetitive manual tasks.

The Ironhand glove adds force to the user’s grip with artificial tendons and pressure sensors on the palm and the fingers.

The result? Reduced strain on the user’s own tendons and muscles, meaning fewer workplace stress injuries and better comfort for workers.

Temperature-Control Fabrics

Spacesuits need major insulation and temperature control to protect astronauts on extravehicular activities, aka spacewalks. To help solve this, we created a phase-change material with help from the Triangle Research and Development Corporation.

With funding from a NASA Small Business Innovation Research contract, Triangle incorporated the material into a fabric glove insert that could maintain a steady temperature by absorbing and releasing heat, ensuring it feels just right.

While the invention never made it to orbit, it did make it into the driver’s seat.

Outlast Technologies exclusively licensed the material from Triangle and has incorporated it into outdoor gear, bedding, and now – auto racing suits with help from Cambridge, England-based Walero.

Due to extreme temperatures in the cockpit, drivers in almost every major racing championship wear Walero for its cooling properties. Cristiana Oprea (pictured) wears it while driving for the European Rally Championship. Credit: Walero

The race undergarments, bonded with fire-retardant material for added protection, help drivers maintain a lower core temperature and heart rate, which means fewer mistakes and better lap times.

The suits have been sold to both amateur racers and professional NASCAR drivers.

Lightweight Rain Jackets

The superinsulating material that makes up space blankets is one of our most ubiquitous spinoffs. Found everywhere from inside the walls and roofs of buildings to cryogenic tanks and MRI machines, radiant barrier technology was first created to insulate spacesuits and spacecraft. And now this NASA spinoff can be found in weatherproof jackets as well.

Inspired by her passion to run following a series of surgeries to help correct a life-threatening injury, Hema Nambiar launched her Larchmont, New York, start-up company 13-One. To create her jacket, she worked with Advanced Flexible Materials Inc.’s brand Heatsheets. The brand was already marketing products like the space blankets traditionally distributed after races to prevent dangerous drops in temperature.

The 13-One jackets are designed to be warm and weatherproof, but their thin, reflective lining lets them also be lightweight and easily portable. Credit: Lourenso Ramautar, Out of New York Studio

The resulting line of jackets has a black exterior and a lining to reflect body heat. They weigh less than a pound, are wind- and water-resistant, and easily pack into a small, built-in pouch.

Want to check out more NASA spinoffs? Be sure to find us on spinoff.nasa.gov and on Twitter.

Interested in licensing your own NASA technologies? Check out the NASA Technology Transfer program at technology.nasa.gov.

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7 Things to Know about the Perseverance Mars Rover

We’re set to launch the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on July 30. The rover is loaded with scientific instruments and advanced technology, making it the largest, heaviest and most sophisticated vehicle ever sent to the Red Planet.

What is Perseverance’s mission and what will it do on Mars? Here are seven things to know:

1. Perseverance draws on the NASA – and scientific – spirit of overcoming challenges

Not only does it have to launch during a pandemic and land on a treacherous planet, it has to carry out its science goals:

Searching for signs of past microbial life

Mapping out the planet’s geology and climate

Collecting rock and other samples for future return to Earth

Paving the way for human exploration

We chose the name Perseverance from among the 28,000 essays submitted during the "Name the Rover" contest. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the months leading up to the launch in particular have required creative problem solving, teamwork and determination.

2. Perseverance builds on the lessons from other Mars rovers

In 1997, our first Mars rover – Sojourner – showed that a robot could rove on the Red Planet. Spirit and Opportunity, which both landed in 2004, found evidence that Mars once had water before becoming a frozen desert.

Curiosity found evidence that Mars’ Gale Crater was home to a lake billions of years ago and that there was an environment that may have sustained microbial life. Perseverance aims to answer the age-old question – are there any signs that life once existed on Mars?

3. Perseverance will land in a place with high potential to find signs of ancient life

The rover will land in Jezero Crater, a 28-mile wide basin north of the Martian equator. A space rock hit the surface long ago, creating the large hole. Between 3 and 4 billion years ago, a river flowed into a body of water in Jezero the size of Lake Tahoe.

4. Perseverance will also collect important data about Mars’ geology and climate

Mars orbiters have collected images and other data about Jezero Crater from about 200 miles above, but finding signs of past life will need much closer inspection. A rover like Perseverance can look for those signs that may be related to ancient life and analyze the context in which they were found to see if the origins were biological.

5. Perseverance is the first leg of a round trip to Mars

This is the first rover to bring a sample-gathering system to Mars that will package promising samples of rocks and other materials for future return to Earth. NASA and ESA are working on the Mars Sample Return campaign, so we can analyze the rocks and sediment with tools too large and complex to send to space.

6. Perseverance will pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet

Two packages -- one that helps the rover autonomously avoid hazards during landing (TRN) and another that gathers crucial data during the trip through Mars’ atmosphere (MEDLI2) – will help future human missions land safely and with larger payloads on other worlds.

There are two instruments that will specifically help astronauts on the Red Planet. One (MEDA) will provide key information about the planet’s weather, climate and dust activity, while a technology demonstration (MOXIE) aims to extract oxygen from Mars’ mostly carbon-dioxide atmosphere.

7. You get to ride along

Perseverance and other parts of the Mars 2020 spacecraft feature 23 cameras, which is more than any other interplanetary mission in history. Raw images from the camera are set to be released on the mission website.

There are also three silicon chips with the names of nearly 11 million people who signed up to send their names to Mars.

And you can continue to follow the mission on Twitter and Facebook. 

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Exploring Hell... up for the challenge?

Venus is an EXTREME world, and we’re calling on YOU to help us explore it! NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory is running a public challenge to develop an obstacle avoidance sensor for a possible future Venus rover. 

With a surface temperature in excess of 840 degrees Fahrenheit and a surface pressure 92 times that of Earth, Venus can turn lead into a puddle and crush a nuclear-powered submarine with ease. While many missions have visited our sister planet, only about a dozen have made contact with the surface of Venus before succumbing to the oppressive heat and pressure after just about more than an hour.

The “Exploring Hell: Avoiding Obstacles on a Clockwork Rover” challenge is seeking the public’s designs for a sensor that could be incorporated into the design concept. The winning sensor could be the primary mechanism by which the rover detects and navigates around obstructions.

Award: 1st Place - $15,000; 2nd Place - $10,000; 3rd Place - $5,000

Open Date: February 18, 2020  ––––––––– Close Date: May 29, 2020

5 New Competitions for the Artemis Generation!

A common question we get is, “How can I work with NASA?”

The good news is—just in time for the back-to-school season—we have a slew of newly announced opportunities for citizen scientists and researchers in the academic community to take a shot at winning our prize competitions.

As we plan to land humans on the Moon by 2024 with our upcoming Artemis missions, we are urging students and universities to get involved and offer solutions to the challenges facing our path to the Moon and Mars. Here are five NASA competitions and contests waiting for your ideas on everything from innovative ways to drill for water on other planets to naming our next rover:

1. The BIG Idea Challenge: Studying Dark Regions on the Moon

Before astronauts step on the Moon again, we will study its surface to prepare for landing, living and exploring there. Although it is Earth’s closest neighbor, there is still much to learn about the Moon, particularly in the permanently shadowed regions in and near the polar regions.

Through the annual Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-changing (BIG) Idea Challenge, we’re asking undergraduate and graduate student teams to submit proposals for sample lunar payloads that can demonstrate technology systems needed to explore areas of the Moon that never see the light of day. Teams of up to 20 students and their faculty advisors are invited to propose unique solutions in response to one of the following areas:

• Exploration of permanently shadowed regions in lunar polar regions • Technologies to support in-situ resource utilization in these regions • Capabilities to explore and operate in permanently shadowed regions

Interested teams are encouraged to submit a Notice of Intent by September 27 in order to ensure an adequate number of reviewers and to be invited to participate in a Q&A session with the judges prior to the proposal deadline. Proposal and video submission are due by January 16, 2020.

2. RASC-AL 2020: New Concepts for the Moon and Mars

Although boots on the lunar surface by 2024 is step one in expanding our presence beyond low-Earth orbit, we’re also readying our science, technology and human exploration missions for a future on Mars.

The 2020 Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts – Academic Linkage (RASC-AL) Competition is calling on undergraduate and graduate teams to develop new concepts that leverage innovations for both our Artemis program and future human missions to the Red Planet. This year’s competition branches beyond science and engineering with a theme dedicated to economic analysis of commercial opportunities in deep space.

Competition themes range from expanding on how we use current and future assets in cislunar space to designing systems and architectures for exploring the Moon and Mars. We’re seeking proposals that demonstrate originality and creativity in the areas of engineering and analysis and must address one of the five following themes: a south pole multi-purpose rover, the International Space Station as a Mars mission analog, short surface stay Mars mission, commercial cislunar space development and autonomous utilization and maintenance on the Gateway or Mars-class transportation.

The RASC-AL challenge is open to undergraduate and graduate students majoring in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics at an accredited U.S.-based university. Submissions are due by March 5, 2020 and must include a two-minute video and a detailed seven to nine-page proposal that presents novel and robust applications that address one of the themes and support expanding humanity’s ability to thrive beyond Earth.

3. The Space Robotics Challenge for Autonomous Rovers

Autonomous robots will help future astronauts during long-duration missions to other worlds by performing tedious, repetitive and even strenuous tasks. These robotic helpers will let crews focus on the more meticulous areas of exploring. To help achieve this, our Centennial Challenges initiative, along with Space Center Houston of Texas, opened the second phase of the Space Robotics Challenge. This virtual challenge aims to advance autonomous robotic operations for missions on the surface of distant planets or moons.

This new phase invites competitors 18 and older from the public, industry and academia to develop code for a team of virtual robots that will support a simulated in-situ resource utilization mission—meaning gathering and using materials found locally—on the Moon.

The deadline to submit registration forms is December 20.

4. Moon to Mars Ice & Prospecting Challenge to Design Hardware, Practice Drilling for Water on the Moon and Mars

A key ingredient for our human explorers staying anywhere other than Earth is water. One of the most crucial near-term plans for deep space exploration includes finding and using water to support a sustained presence on our nearest neighbor and on Mars.

To access and extract that water, NASA needs new technologies to mine through various layers of lunar and Martian dirt and into ice deposits we believe are buried beneath the surface. A special edition of the RASC-AL competition, the Moon to Mars Ice and Prospecting Challenge, seeks to advance critical capabilities needed on the surface of the Moon and Mars. The competition, now in its fourth iteration, asks eligible undergraduate and graduate student teams to design and build hardware that can identify, map and drill through a variety of subsurface layers, then extract water from an ice block in a simulated off-world test bed.

Interested teams are asked to submit a project plan detailing their proposed concept’s design and operations by November 14. Up to 10 teams will be selected and receive a development stipend. Over the course of six months teams will build and test their systems in preparation for a head-to-head competition at our Langley Research Center in June 2020.

5. Name the Mars 2020 Rover!

Red rover, red rover, send a name for Mars 2020 right over! We’re recruiting help from K-12 students nationwide to find a name for our next Mars rover mission.

The Mars 2020 rover is a 2,300-pound robotic scientist that will search for signs of past microbial life, characterize the planet's climate and geology, collect samples for future return to Earth, and pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet.

K-12 students in U.S. public, private and home schools can enter the Mars 2020 Name the Rover essay contest. One grand prize winner will name the rover and be invited to see the spacecraft launch in July 2020 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. To enter the contest, students must submit by November 1 their proposed rover name and a short essay, no more than 150 words, explaining why their proposed name should be chosen.

Just as the Apollo program inspired innovation in the 1960s and '70s, our push to the Moon and Mars is inspiring students—the Artemis generation—to solve the challenges for the next era of space exploration.

For more information on all of our open prizes and challenges, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/solve/explore_opportunities

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Meet More Humans Behind the Robots

There are many paths to a career at NASA. Here are 10 amazing people on the frontlines of deep space exploration.

1—The Pub Master

“I was running a pub in the North of England after dropping out of college, and as fate would have it, I met a lovely American physics lecturer Dr. Jim Gotaas,” said Abi Rymer (shown above in the bottom right of the group photo). Abi works on the Europa Clipper mission.

“I was sold on a course he ran on Observational Astronomy and Instrumentation at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston, Lancashire and I went from there to join the second year of the Physics and Astronomy at Royal Holloway, part of London University. I loved theoretical physics but never imagined I was talented enough to do a PhD. When I graduated, I was shocked to be top of the year.”

2—The Orbit Artist

“Within seven months of being at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory,” says Brent Buffington, a mission design manager, “I figured out we could modify the Cassini Prime Mission trajectory to fly very close to the moon Tethys—a moon that didn’t have any close flybys in the original Prime Mission—and simultaneously lower a planned 621-mile (1,000-kilometer) targeted flyby of Hyperion down to 311 miles (500 kilometers). To be this young buck fresh out of grad school standing in front of a room full of seasoned engineers and scientists, trying to convince them that this was the right thing to do with a multi-billion dollar asset, and ultimately getting the trajectory modification approved was extremely rewarding.”

3—The Searcher

“Geochemical evidence suggests that between 4 and 2.5 billion years ago, there may have been an intermittent haze in the atmosphere of Earth similar to the haze in the atmosphere of Saturn’s moon Titan,” says astrobiologist Giada Arney. “It's a really alien phase of Earth's history —our planet wouldn't have been a pale blue dot, it would have been a pale orange dot. We thought about questions like: What would our planet look like if you were looking at it as an exoplanet? How you might infer biosignatures—the signs of life—from looking at such an alien planet?”

4—The Volcanologist

“I spent the summer after graduating from studying Mars' remnant magnetic field in the Planetary Magnetospheres Lab at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center,” says planetary geophysicist Lynnae Quick. “My advisor, Mario Acuña, showed me how to bring up Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) images of the Martian surface on my computer. This was the first time I'd ever laid eyes, firsthand, on images of another planet's surface returned from a spacecraft. I remember just being in awe.

“My second favorite moment has to be pouring over mosaics of Europa and learning to identify and map chaos regions, impact craters and other surface units during my first summer at APL. Once again, I felt that there was a whole other alien world at my fingertips.”

5—The Pioneer

“A few months after NASA was formed I was asked if I knew anyone who would like to set up a program in space astronomy,” says Nancy Roman, a retired NASA astronomer. “I knew that taking on this responsibility would mean that I could no longer do research, but the challenge of formulating a program from scratch that I believed would influence astronomy for decades to come was too great to resist.”

6—The Modeler

“I took Planetary Surfaces with Bruce Murray (whom I later found out had been JPL’s fifth director) and did a presentation on Europa's chaos terrains,” say Serina Diniega, an investigation scientist on the Europa Clipper mission. “I was fascinated to learn about the different models proposed for the formation of these enigmatic features and the way in which scientists tried to discriminate between the models while having very limited observational data. In this, I realized I’d found my application: modeling the evolution of planetary landforms."

7—The Bassist

“I admire people who dedicate themselves 110 percent to what they do,” says Warren Kaye, a software engineer. “People like the recently deceased Stephen Hawking, who rose above his own physical limitations to develop new scientific theories, or Frank Zappa, who was able to produce something like 50 albums worth of music over a 20-year span.”

8—The (Space) Photographer

“I got to pick what the camera took pictures of in a given week, and then analyze those pictures from the standpoint of a geologist,” says Tanya Harrison, a planetary scientist. “There aren't many people in the world who get paid to take pictures of Mars every day! Seeing the first images...It was almost surreal -- not only are you picking what to take pictures of on Mars, you're also typically the first person on Earth to see those pictures when they come back from Mars.”

9—The Scientist

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

“A scientist,” says Casey Lisse, a scientist on our New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt.

At what point did you determine that you would become a scientist?

“Age 5.”

10 —The Extrovert

“Throughout my life, I’ve gone from being an extremely shy introvert to more of an outgoing extrovert,” says science writer Elizabeth Landau. “It’s been a gradual uphill climb. I used to be super shy. When I was really young, I felt like I didn't know how to talk to other kids. I was amazed by how people fluidly spoke to each other without thinking too hard about it, without appearing to have any kind of embarrassment or reservation about what they were saying. I've definitely developed confidence over time—now I can very quickly and comfortably switch from talking about something like physics to personal matters, and be totally open to listening to others as well.”

Check out the full version of “Solar System: 10 Things to Know This Week” HERE.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.  

Sample Return Robot Challenge

It’s been a long, technical journey for the seven teams competing this week in Level 2 of our Sample Return Robot Challenge. Over the past five years, more than 50 teams have attempted the $1.5 million competition, which is looking to develop autonomous capabilities in robotics. Basically, we want robots that can think and act on their own, so they can travel to far off places – like Mars – and we can rely on them to work on their own when a time delay or unknown conditions could be factors.

This challenge has two levels, both requiring robots to navigate without human control and Earth-based tools (like GPS or magnetic compassing). The robot has to find samples, pick them up and deliver them to home base. Each of the final seven teams succeeded at Level 1, where they had to find one sample, during previous competition years. Now, they have a shot at the much more difficult Level 2, where they have a two-hour window to locate up to 10 samples of varying point values, but they don’t know where to look or what exactly they’re looking for.

Get to know the final seven, and be sure to cheer them on as we live-stream the competition all day Sept. 4 and 5.

West Virginia University Mountaineers Hailing from: Morgantown, West Virginia # of Team Members:  12

Behind the Name: In West Virginia, we call ourselves mountaineers. We like to explore unknown places and be inspired by nature.

Motivation: To challenge ourselves. Through this venture, we are also hoping to create research and career opportunities for everyone on the team.

Strategy: Keeping things simple. Through participating in SRR challenge during the last three years, we have gone a long way in streamlining our system.

Obstacles: One of the biggest challenges was finding and nurturing the talent of individual team members and coordinating the team in making real progress on time.

Prize Plans: We donated 50 percent of our 2015 Level 2 prize money to create an undergraduate “Robotics Achievement Fellowship” at WVU. The rest of the funding was allocated to support team member professional development, such as traveling to conferences. A similar model will be used if we win in 2016.

Extra Credit:  We did an Easter egg hunt with our robot, Cataglyphis (named after a desert ant with extraordinary navigation capabilities), last year.

Survey Hailing from: Los Angeles, California # of Team Members: Jascha Little

Behind the Name: It's short, simple, and what the robot spends a lot of its time doing.

Team History: We work together, and we all thought the challenge sounded like an excellent way to solve the problem of what to do with all our free time.

Motivation: We are all engineers and software developers that already work on robotics projects. Reading too much sci-fi when we were kids probably got us to this point.

Strategy: We are trying to solve the search-and-return problem primarily with computer vision. This is mostly to reduce cost. Our budget can't handle high quality IMUs or LIDAR.

Prize Plans: Probably build more robots.

Extra Credit: Favorite pop culture robot is Bender (Futurama). Alcoholic robots are the best.

Alabama Astrobotics (The University of Alabama) Hailing from: Tuscaloosa, Alabama # of Team Members: 33

Behind the Name: “Alabama Astrobotics” was chosen to reflect our school affiliation and our mission to design robotics for various space applications.

Team History: Alabama Astrobotics has been involved with other NASA robotics competitions in the past.  So, the team is accustomed to the competition environment.  

Motivation: We are pleased to have advanced to Level 2 in our first year in the competition (the first team to do so), but we are also not satisfied with just advancing.  Our goal is to try to solve Level 2.

Strategy: Our strategy is similar to that used in Level 1.  Our Level 1 approach was chosen so that it would translate to Level 2 as well, thus requiring fewer customizations from Level 1 to Level 2.

Obstacles: As a university team, the biggest challenge was not having all our team members available to work on the robot during the time since Level 1 completed in June. Most of my team members have either graduated or have summer internships, which took them away from campus after Level 1.  Thus, we didn’t have the manpower to address the additional Level 2 technical challenges.

Prize Plans: Any prize money would be donated to the University of Alabama College of Engineering.

Extra Credit: Alabama Astrobotics also competes in the annual NASA Robotic Mining Competition held at the Kennedy Space Center each May.  We have been fortunate enough to win that competition three times in its seven year history, and we are the only team to win it more than once.

MAXed-Out Hailing From: Santa Clara, California # of Team Members: 4

Behind the Name: Several reasons: Team leader is Greg Maxwell, and his school nick name was Max. Our robot’s name is Max, which is one of the most common name for a dog, and it is a retriever. Our efforts on this has been too the max…. i.e. MAXed-Out. Our technology requirements have been pushed to their limits - Maxed-Out.

Team History: Greg Maxwell started a Meet-up “Silicon-Valley Robot Operating System” SV-ROS that was to help teach hobbyists how to use ROS on their robots. We needed a project to help implement and make real what we were teaching. This is the third contest we have participated in.

Motivation: There is still such a long way to go to make robots practical. Every little bit we can contribute makes them a little bit better and smarter. Strategy: Level 1 was a test, as a minimum viable product to prove the tech worked. For Level 2, we had to test and add obstacle avoidance to be able to cover the larger area with trees and slopes, plus add internal guidance to allow for Max to be out of the home base camera tracking system.

Obstacles: Lack of a cost effective robot platform that met all the requirements; we had to build our own. Also time and money. The two months (between Level 1 and 2) went really fast, and we had to abandon lots of cool ideas and focus on the basics.

Prize Plans: Not sure, but pay off the credit cards comes to mind. We might open-source the platform since it works pretty well. Or we will see if it works as expected. We may also take a break / vacation away from robots for a while.

Extra Credit: My nephew, Max Hieges, did our logo, based on the 1960-era Rat Fink sticker.

Mind & Iron Hailing From: Seattle, Washington # of Team Members: 5

Behind the Name: It was the original title for Isaac Asimov’s “I Robot,” and we thought it was a good combination of what a robot actually is – mechanical and brains.

Team History: Three of us were WPI undergrads and met at school; two of us did our master’s degrees at the University of Washington, where we met another member, and then another of us brought on a family member.

Motivation: We saw that there was an opportunity to compete in a challenge that seemed like there was a reasonable solution that we could tackle with a limited budget. We saw three years of competition and thought that we had some better ideas and a pretty good shot at it. Strategy: The samples and the terrain are much more complex in Level 2, and we have to be more careful about our navigation. We are using the same tools, just expanding their capability and scope.

Obstacles: The team being spread over three different time zones has been the biggest challenge. We are all doing this in our free time after work. The internet has been really handy to get things done.

Prize Plans: Probably invest in more robot stuff! And look for other cool projects we can work on, whether it’s another NASA challenge or other projects.

Extra Credit: We are hoping to collaborate with NASA on the professional side with surgical robots to exoskeletons. Challenge-related, our robot is mostly made of plywood – it is a composite fiber material that works well for fast development using cheap materials.

Sirius Hailing From: South Hadley, Massachusetts # of Team Members: 4

Team History: We are a family. Our kids are both robot builders who work for Boston Dynamics, and they have a lot of robot expertise. Both of our kids are robotics engineers, and my wife is intrinsically brilliant, so the combination of that makes for a good team.

Motivation: Because it’s a really hard challenge. It’s one thing to drive a robot with a remote control; it’s another to do the whole thing autonomously. If you make a single change in a robot, it could throw everything off. You have to think through every step for the robot. On a basic level, to learn more about robotics and to win the prize. Strategy: Very similar to Level 1. We approached Level 1 knowing Level 2 was there, so our strategy was no different.

Obstacles: It is very difficult to do object recognition under unpredictable conditions – sun, clouds, weather, sample location. The biggest challenge was trying to recognize known and unknown objects under such a wide variety of environmental possibilities. And the terrain is very different – you don’t know what you’re going to find out there.

Prize Plans: We haven’t really thought about it, but we will give some away, and we’ll invest the rest in our robotics company.

Extra Credit: The first robot we had was called Robo-Dad. Dan was training to be an astronaut in the 1990s, so we built a toy remote-controlled truck that Dan - in Texas - could control via the internet in the house. Robo-Dad had a camera that Dan could see the house with. It had two-way communication; it was a little before it’s time – the internet was very slow.

Team AL Hailing From: Ontario, Canada # of Team Members: 1

Team History: I was looking for competitions that were open, and my dad had followed the Centennial Challenges for a while, so he alerted me to this one. I was already doing rover projects, and it was appropriate and awesome and interesting. I felt like I could do it as a team of one.

Motivation: Difficult challenges. I’m definitely inspired seeing really cool robots that other people are building. New emerging tech really motives me to create new things.

Strategy: I showed up with another robot to Level 2. I built three, but ran with only two. It did make it more complicated, but the strategy was to send them to different areas and have them be able to communicate with each other. Everything physically was the same from Level 1.  The idea is that they would all go out with different missions and I would maximize field coverage.

Obstacles: Time. More time would always be nice. Being able to make something like this happen under a timeline is really difficult. I feel like I accomplished a lot for a year. Also, manpower – being a team of 1, I have to do all of the paperwork and other related stuff, but also carry the hardware and do the programming. You have to multitask a lot.

Prize Plans: I’d like to start a robotics company, and be able to expand some of the things I’ve been working on associated with technology and maker education.

Extra Credit: My story is not linear. A lot of people are surprised to hear that my background is in molecular biology and  research. I once lived in a tent in Madagascar for a few months to do a biodiversity study, and I have multiple publications from that side of my life. I am in a whole different place now.

The competition is one of many run by our Centennial Challenges program, which looks to the public – citizen inventors, academics, makers, artists, YOU – to help us advance technology and bring a different perspective to obstacles that gets us outside of our traditional solving community. See what else we’re working on here.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com 

Solar System: 5 Things to Know This Week

From Mars to the asteroid belt to Saturn, our hardworking space robots are exploring the solar system. These mechanical emissaries orbit distant worlds or rove across alien landscapes, going places that are too remote or too dangerous for people (for now).

We often show off the pictures that these spacecraft send home, but this week we’re turning that around: here are some of the best pictures of the space robots, taken by other robots (or themselves), in deep space.

1. So Selfless with the Selfies

The Mars Curiosity rover makes breathtaking panoramas of the Martian landscape — and looks good doing it. This mission is famous for the remarkable self portraits of its robotic geologist in action. See more Martian selfies HERE. You can also try this draggable 360 panorama HERE. Find out how the rover team makes these images HERE.

2. Two Spaceships Passing in the Moonlight

In a feat of timing on Jan. 14, 2014, our Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter caught a snapshot of LADEE, another robotic spacecraft that was orbiting the moon at the time. LADEE zoomed past at a distance of only about five miles below.

3. Bon Voyage, Galileo

The history-making Galileo mission to Jupiter set sail from the cargo bay of another spacecraft, Space Shuttle Atlantis, on Oct. 18, 1989. Get ready for Juno, which is the next spacecraft to arrive at Jupiter in July.

4. Cometary Close-Up

Using a camera on the Philae lander, the Rosetta spacecraft snapped an extraordinary self portrait at comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko from a distance of about 10 miles. The image captures the side of Rosetta and one of its 14-meter-long solar wings, with the comet in the background. Learn more about Rosetta HERE.

5. Man and Machine

This snapshot captures a remarkable moment in the history of exploration: the one and only time a human met up in space with a robotic forerunner on location. The Surveyor 3 lander helped pave the way for the astronaut footsteps that came a few years later. See the story of Apollo 12 and this unique encounter HERE.

Want to learn more? Read our full list of the 10 things to know this week about the solar system HERE.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Solar System: 5 Things To Know This Week

We live during one of the great eras of exploration. At this very moment, there are dozens of spacecraft surveying the solar system, from Mars, to Saturn, to Pluto and beyond. What’s more, you can ride along with these expeditions — all you need is an internet connection to see the latest discoveries from deep space. Here are a few essential resources for the armchair astronaut:

1. It’s Like Facebook, but for Planets

Or is it more of a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Solar System? Whatever you want to call it, our Planets page offers quick rundowns, as well as in-depth guides, for all the major bodies in the solar system. Explore from the sun all they way out to the Oort Cloud.

2. Robots to the Rescue

Saturn looks spectacular through a telescope, but there’s only so much you can learn about it from the ground. Going there in person is tough, too. While we are now preparing to send astronauts beyond Earth orbit, a human mission to Saturn won’t be possible in the near future. That’s where the space robots come in. For example, the Cassini spacecraft studies Saturn and its moons up close, sometimes even doing things like flying right through the geyser plumes of the ice moon Enceladus. See all the solar system missions, past and present, where they went and what they’ve seen HERE.

3. Keep Your Eyes on This One

If you still haven’t tried Eyes on the Solar System, you’re missing out. This online simulation lets you tour the planets and track the past, current and future positions of spacecraft — right in your web browser, all in 3D. Eyes on the Solar System uses real NASA data to help you take a virtual flight across both space and time.

4. Images in the Raw

You don’t have to wait for a news release to see pictures from planetary missions. Some missions allow you to see raw, unprocessed images sent straight from the spacecraft. What these images lack in explanatory captions they make up for in freshness — sometimes you can see pictures from Mars or Saturn that are mere hours old. There’s something exhilarating about being among the first human beings ever to see an alien landscape. Peruse our new raw image pages HERE.

5. Bring It On Home

After you’ve toured the far reaches of the solar system, you can always come home again. When you have spent time studying the harsh conditions of our neighboring planets, the charms of a unique paradise come into sharp focus, the place we call Earth. Watch a real-time video feed from Earth orbit HERE. You can also see a daily global view of our planet from a million miles away HERE. Download THIS Earth Now mobile app to hold the planet in your hands.

Want to learn more? Read our full list of the 10 things to know this week about the solar system HERE.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com