{"id":22017,"date":"2022-05-09T22:25:24","date_gmt":"2022-05-09T22:25:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/saj.pachecostudios.com?p=22017"},"modified":"2022-05-09T22:25:29","modified_gmt":"2022-05-09T22:25:29","slug":"winners-announced-for-lunar-exploration-with-a-miniaturized-payload-prototype-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/aerospace-education\/winners-announced-for-lunar-exploration-with-a-miniaturized-payload-prototype-challenge\/%20","title":{"rendered":"Winners Announced for Lunar Exploration with a Miniaturized Payload Prototype Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

HeroX, the leading platform and open marketplace for crowdsourced solutions, has announced the winners of the “Honey, I Shrunk the NASA Payload, the Sequel<\/a>” Challenge. The Challenge sought designs for miniature payload prototypes that could be sent to the Moon to help fill gaps in lunar knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Winners to Share $140K Prize Purse for Creating Novel, Miniaturized Lunar Payloads in Preparation for Sustained Presence on the Moon.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The first “Honey, I Shrunk the NASA Payload\nChallenge” launched on April 9, 2020. Fourteen teams were recognized and\nrewarded for their innovative approaches to miniature payload development.\nThese fourteen teams were invited to participate in the sequel challenge, which\nlaunched on October 15, 2020. From among those fourteen teams, four finalist\nteams were selected who then relied on crowdsourcing to recruit new team\nmembers and fill any resource gaps they might have. Two of these expanded teams\ncompleted the next step of the challenge and were each awarded up to $225,000\nthat was used to develop their proposals into functioning, flight-ready\npayloads. In addition, a third team was awarded $65,000 to develop their\nproposal. Two years later, these teams have completed their hardware\ndevelopment and testing, and could one day see their payloads operate on the\nMoon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first, second and third place teams will now receive\n$100,000, $25,000, and $15,000, respectively, in prize money from HeroX, but\nall three finalist teams are also being evaluated by NASA for potential\naccommodation on a future flight to the Moon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First place winner, Sunslicer<\/a> – Miniaturized XRAY Spectrometer by Team Sun Slicer<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Team SunSlicer is a collection of space and space science\nenthusiasts with founding members Phillip Jobson, Garrett Jernigan, John Doty\nand Brian Silverman. Garrett, John and Brian are MIT alumni that have\nco-developed cubesats for educational purposes. Brian Silverman built and\nmentored the 3-man software team which included Vadim Gerasimov (Scientist,\nGoogle Software Engineer and co-developer of the original TETRIS Game) who\nperformed the invaluable heavy lifting for the payload firmware implementation,\nBLDC motor controller and user interface development. Phil Jobson led the\nSunSlicer project and was responsible for all aspects of the payload project\nmanagement, hardware development, implementation, procurement and testing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SunSlicer is an innovative, miniature, low power, versatile,\nTRL7 flight ready XRAY spectrometer with custom packaging and thermal design to\nadapt it for a harsh, miniature rover-deployed lunar environment. A key feature\nof SunSlicer is the lunar dust mitigation concept that utilizes a rotary\nshutter\/filter wheel and wiper system that is driven by an extremely compact\ncustom motor implementation and geartrain. SunSlicer has many impactful mission\npossibilities for the Artemis program in both identifying lunar resource\npotential and characterizing the lunar environment including prospecting for\nrock forming elements leveraging solar flares, measuring flare producing solar\nactive regions to high angular accuracy and monitoring background XRAY\nradiation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second place winner, Puli Lunar Water Snooper<\/a> by Puli Space Technologies <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Puli Lunar Water Snooper is a neutron spectrometer that\ndetects hydrogen atoms in lunar regolith. Hydrogen concentrations indicate\nwhether water and other hydrogen bearing volatiles are present. Since these\nneutrons are generated by cosmic rays, hydrogen can be detected several meters\nbelow the surface. A low-cost, simple, and extremely lightweight solution for\nthis capability is critical for future robotic explorations on the Moon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Puli Space Technologies is also helping explore the rough\nlunar terrains & harsh lunar environment with an experienced team of\nengineers and scientists passionate about the Moon http:\/\/pulispace.com <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Third place winner, \u00c2\u00b5RAD<\/a>, A Micro-Scale Lunar Radiation Detector by Christian Haughwout and Thomas (Joey) Murphy.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00c2\u00b5RAD is proposed by a two-person team composed of Christian\nHaughwout and Thomas (Joey) Murphy. Christian and Joey are graduate students at\nMIT pursuing PhDs in space systems engineering in the department of aeronautics\nand astronautics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Radiation is one of the greatest threats to extended human\nhabitation in space. Shielding from and mitigating the effects of this\nradiation for the Artemis program will require detailed surveys of the\nradiation environment at the lunar pole. Currently existing devices capable of\nmaking the required measurements are too large and too expensive for widespread\ndeployment on Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) rovers and landers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore, Team \u00c2\u00b5RAD’s payload is a miniaturized radiation\nmeasuring instrument with many of the same features as the radiation assessment\ndetector (RAD) on the Curiosity rover, but whose size, weight, and power (SWaP)\nare compatible with smaller exploration vehicles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To view the challenge, visit https:\/\/www.herox.com\/NASAPayload2<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HeroX, the leading platform and open marketplace for crowdsourced solutions, has announced the winners of the “Honey, I Shrunk the NASA Payload, the Sequel” Challenge. The Challenge sought designs for miniature payload prototypes that could be sent to the Moon to help fill gaps in lunar knowledge. The first “Honey, I Shrunk the NASA Payload […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[144],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aerospace-education"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22017"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22019,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22017\/revisions\/22019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}