Advances in lunar regolith mining have the potential to significantly contribute to NASA space exploration operations. The Lunabotics Mining Competition uses excavation, a necessary first step towards extracting resources from the regolith and building bases on the Moon. The teams that can use telerobotic or autonomous operation to excavate the most lunar regolith simulant within a 15-minute time limit will win the competition.

The unique physical properties of lunar regolith and the reduced 1/6th gravity, vacuum environment make excavation a difficult technical challenge. The competition will be conducted by NASA at Kennedy Space Center. The prize funding for the Lunabotics Student Mining Competition is provided by NASA.  The minimum excavation requirement is 10.0 kg, and the excavation hardware mass limit is 80.0 kg.

Undergraduate and graduate student teams enrolled in a U.S. or international college or university are eligible to enter. A group of universities also may work in collaboration on an excavator project entry. Multidisciplinary teams are encouraged. Competition rules can be downloaded at http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/390619main_lunaboticsrules.pdf.

Project owners + coordinators:
Susan Sawyer, ESMD Space Grant Project Specialist