Winners Named in NASA Runway Reconfiguration Challenge

Participants in the Run-way Functions: Predict Reconfigurations at US Airports challenge designed algorithms for predicting future airport configurations that can support critical decisions, reduce costs, conserve energy, and mitigate delays.

Winners Announced in NASA Ultralight Starshade Challenge

The Ultralight Starshade Structural Design Challenge invited the public to be active participants in this ambitious study.

Public Helps NASA Consider New Ways to Recycle Orbital Space Debris

NASA has selected the winners in the NASA Orbital Alchemy Challenge dedicated to recycling large orbital space debris.

These Ideas Could Help Future Astronauts Manage Waste on Long Missions

NASA has selected five winners for the Waste Jettison Mechanism Challenge. The challenge asked participants to design technologies capable of ejecting non-recyclable waste that would be produced during a crewed Mars mission.

NASA Seeks Public’s Designs to Throw Shade in Space

The Ultralight Starshade Structural Design Challenge asks participants to develop a lightweight starshade structure that could be used as part of the HOEE concept.

NASA Names Winners in Waste to Base Materials Challenge

The challenge tasked participants with developing ideas to convert waste into useful resources, like propellant or raw materials for 3D printing.

Winners Announced for NASA ‘Risky Business’ Challenge

The public was asked to design project management tools that could extract past project risk information and utilize artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) to predict risks on future projects.

Help NASA Develop Virtual Reality to Plan for Future Mars Missions

The NASA MarsXR Challenge is seeking developers to create new assets and scenarios for the Mars XR Operations Support System (XOSS) environment.

Mini Crowdsourced Payloads Could Support NASA’s Artemis Missions

Three teams have been chosen as winners of a NASA challenge to develop miniature science instruments that could one day help astronauts explore the Moon.

NASA Seeks Help From Public To Recycle Spacecraft Resources

The NASA Orbital Alchemy Challenge seeks to inspire innovators of all ages, skills, and interests to help determine how humanity can make use of orbital debris to explore the cosmos in a more sustainable way.

NASA Seeks Ideas for Handling Waste on Future Human Missions to Mars

With a horizon goal to send humans to Mars, NASA continues to develop technologies needed to send humans farther into the solar system than ever before. One area ripe for innovation that could have benefits in space and on Earth is waste management.

NASA Selects Winners of Lunar TORCH Challenge

The competition sought solutions for an innovative, lightweight mobile heliostat design – a device with a movable mirror to direct sunlight in a fixed direction.

NASA Announces Winners of Future of Flight Challenge

The competition asked the public to help envision the future of flight, anticipating how societal, technological, regulatory, environmental, economic, and political changes over the next 30 years might impact aviation, and vice versa.

NASA Calls on Public to Help Envision the Future of Flight

Imagine the future of aviation. Will we travel in personal hovercraft? How about transoceanic flights that take just a couple of hours?

Help Pave the Way for Artemis: Send NASA Your Mini Moon Payload Designs

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, is running a public prize competition to design miniaturized payloads for future Moon missions.

NASA Competition Seeks Student Data Crunchers for Runway Solutions

The need for more accurate runway predictions and reconfigurations is becoming more important as airports get busier.

Help NASA Develop Virtual Reality to Plan for Future Mars Missions

The NASA MarsXR Challenge is seeking developers to create new assets and scenarios for the Mars XR Operations Support System (XOSS) environment.

NASA Selects Winners of Common Restraints and Mobility Aid Environments Challenge

The challenge sought ideas for a common system that would help bolster astronauts’ mobility and safety when maneuvering around different environments and work in four gravity environments

Help NASA Design Restraint and Mobility Aid Systems for Different Gravity Environments

NASA is developing a common system that can apply to any gravity field from here to Mars. And the agency is calling on the public to help.

Help NASA Design a Toilet for Artemis Astronauts on the Moon

 NASA is calling on the global community to help innovate space toilet concepts through the Lunar Loo Challenge.

Innovators Around the World Help NASA Improve a Moon Digging Robot

NASA is advancing technologies needed to explore and work on the lunar surface. This includes developing capabilities to “live off the land,” which requires being able to dig up resources in the lunar soil, or regolith.

Help Pave the Way for Artemis: Send NASA Your Mini Moon Payload Designs

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, is running a public prize competition to design miniaturized payloads for future Moon missions.

Help NASA Design a Robot to Dig on the Moon

Digging on the Moon is a hard job for a robot. It has to be able to collect and move lunar soil, or regolith, but anything launching to the Moon needs to be lightweight.

Problem Solvers Win NASA Tournament Lab Challenge, Help Improve Animal Tracking

NASA partnered with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, or BOEM, to improve our ability to protect endangered and vulnerable species with space technology.

NASA, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Name Earth and Space Air Prize Winner

NASA is hoping to use new aerosol monitoring technology to keep astronauts breathing easy.

NASA, BOEM to Study Technology for Next Generation Animal Tracking

Tracking the movements of ocean animals is important for understanding how to recover and maintain their populations, and a new technology partnership may also help improve the satellite technology to track rovers on future missions to other planets.

Breathing Even Easier: Finalists Selected for NASA’s Earth and Space Air Prize

Technology development may be one step closer to improving breathable air for humans both on Earth as well as in space.

Breathing Easy with the Earth and Space Air Prize Competition

To ensure the health of humans living on Earth as well as those traveling in spacecraft to explore the solar system, aerosol sensors are needed to monitor air quality and alert engineers when action is necessary.

Winners of Space Poop Challenge Receive $30,000

The challenge sought solutions to address how to collect and route human waste away from the body while wearing a spacesuit in microgravity for up to six days.

Asteroid Grand Challenge Releases "Find Them Now" Video

The video challenge was opened to public submissions on October 19, 2015. The NASA team received over 600 ideas of 140 characters or less which were narrowed down to four possible pitch concepts.

NASA Announces Bio-Inspired Advanced Exercise Concepts Challenge

Three hundred eighty-three days in space is a long time – time enough to lose bone mass and muscle strength – and NASA is offering up to $15,000 for innovative ideas on how to keep astronauts on long duration missions healthy through exercise.

'CineSpace' Film Competition Ready for Liftoff with Director Richard Linklater to Help Judge

NASA and Houston Cinema Arts Society (HCAS)’s inaugural CineSpace short film competition is ready for liftoff, opening for submission June 1, with a celebrated Houston filmmaker on board to help select the winners.

Be an Asteroid Hunter in NASA's First Asteroid Grand Challenge Contest Series

NASA’s Asteroid Data Hunter contest series will offer $35,000 in awards over the next six months to citizen scientists who develop improved algorithms that can be used to identify asteroids.

Recycling in Space: Waste Handling in a Microgravity Environment Challenge

The Recycling in Space Challenge is an opportunity for the public to submit proposals for components capable of storing and transferring trash to a thermal processing unit.

Solver Spotlight: Lauren Fell

Fell is an associate lecturer at Queensland University of Technology. She has a background in psychology and is currently completing her PhD in Quantum Cognition, a field that utilizes quantum formalisms to explain human decision-making.

Solver Spotlight: Eric Hinterman

NASA’s prizes and challenges garner unique talent from all over the world. Some participants are seasoned experts in niche fields, while others are young professionals or interns who are still honing their craft. One such individual is Eric Hinterman, a NASA Space Technology Research (NSTR) fellow at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. 

Solver Spotlight: Hugo Shelley

The NASA Tournament Lab (NTL) has gathered a wide array of inspiring ideas from some of the world’s brightest and most innovative individuals. A few have even gone on a winning streak, nabbing awards in multiple challenges with their creative thinking. One such solver is Hugo Shelley – a three-time NTL challenge winner.

Solver Spotlight: Venetia Gonzales

NASA Shared Services Center’s Venetia Gonzales has big dreams for the agency. She recently shared those thoughts as part of the “Explore as One” Video Challenge hosted by the 2018 NASA FIRST (Foundations of Influence, Relationships, Success and Teamwork) cohort.