With the Artemis program, NASA will send the first woman and next man to the surface of the Moon, construct a lunar orbiting outpost, and establish a sustainable presence. This will require deliveries of supplies and equipment to the lunar surface, but how to unload the cargo once it arrives is an open question. NASA created the Lunar Delivery Challenge to seek ideas from the public for practical and cost-effective solutions to unload payloads onto the surface of the Moon.
The challenge received 224 entries before the submission period closed Jan. 19, 2021. The ideas came from various types of space enthusiasts who share a passion for human space exploration, and participants varied from student teams, to individuals from the private sector, to parent-child duos.
NASA awarded $25,000 in total prizes to six teams, including one first place winner with a prize of $10,000; two second place winners with prizes of $4,500 each; and three third place winners with prizes of $2,000 each:
- First Place – Lightweight Inflatable Delivery System (LIDS) by Lauren Fell
- Second Place – OO.A – mOOngoAt by Team FRD
- Second Place – Scalable Payload Delivery System (SPaDeS) by Team SPaDeS
- Third Place – Transporter and Gantry (L-TAG) by Team AA-Star
- Third Place – Modular Lunar Cargo Handling System by Team Sparkletron
- Third Place – Truss Manipulator by Wendell Chun
For a link to the full story, and to read about each of the winning concepts, click here.