Solar energy is a renewable source that would be available on the Moon and at other destinations in space. To enable practical system demonstrations of diverse design solutions by independent teams, the Night Rover Challenge may be conducted in an ambient Earth environment. Competitors with successful and appropriate system designs may be invited to test their energy storage systems in NASA thermal-vacuum chambers to demonstrate applicability to the space and lunar environment. The Challenge will be to demonstrate a portable energy storage system through several cycles of lunar daylight and darkness. During the daylight period, systems will receive electrical or thermal energy from a simulated solar collector. During darkness, the stored energy will be used for simulated thermal management, scientific experimentation, communications, and rover movement. The competitors may store and extract the energy by any means they desire. A winning system must exceed the performance of a reference state-of-the-art system by a specified margin. The winning system would be the one that has the highest energy storage density.

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