Photo by Violet Blue

The Regolith Excavation Challenge allows citizen inventors to participate by applying their talents to develop innovative solutions and new technologies to efficiently excavate lunar regolith.

The project is designed to promote the development of mechanical designs to excavate lunar regolith. Excavation is a necessary first step towards lunar resource utilization, and the unique physical properties of lunar regolith make excavation a difficult technical challenge. Advances in lunar regolith excavation have the potential to contribute significantly to the nation’s space exploration operations.

The rules will remain very similar to the 2008 competition, with the exception that they plan to allow teams to utilize telerobotic operations. Teams are eligible to receive first, second or third prize of $500k, $150k and $100k, respectively

Project owners + coordinators:
Matt Everingham

THE DEADLINE TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS PROJECT HAS PASSED.

To learn more and participate by September 30, 2009, read: the final rules (PDF)

To stay up-to-date on this project:
• read http://regolith.csewi.org
• follow @regolith_chal