Suggested Searches

NASA’s LunaRecycle Challenge

Innovating Waste Management and Recycling Systems for Long-Duration Space Travel

About the Challenge

The LunaRecycle Challenge is a $3 million, two track, two-phase competition focused on the design and development of recycling solutions that can reduce solid waste and improve the sustainability of longer-term lunar missions.
 
NASA is committed to sustainable space exploration. As we prepare for future human space missions, there will be a need to consider how various waste streams, including solid waste, can be minimized—as well as how waste can be stored, processed, and recycled in a space environment so that little or no waste will need to be returned to Earth.
 
The challenge also can influence and inspire better approaches and outcomes for terrestrial recycling—through entirely novel approaches, through processes that improve efficiency and reduce toxic outputs, and through smaller-scale technologies that could be deployed in communities around the globe.

Register for the Challenge about About the Challenge

Challenge Lead Center

 Kennedy Space Center

Phase 1 Submissions Due

March 31, 2025

Eligibility

Global citizens

Next Webinar

 Stay tuned

NASA Seeks Innovators for Lunar Waste Competition 

A new NASA competition, the LunaRecycle Challenge, is open and offering $3 million in prizes for innovations in recycling material waste on deep space missions. 

Learn More about NASA Seeks Innovators for Lunar Waste Competition 
Earth's Moon against the backdrop of space
NASA

Contact Us:

Challenge
Kim Krome (Acting Program Manager)
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256-993-9734
hq-stmd-centennialchallenges@mail.nasa.gov

Media Inquiries
Ramon J. Osorio
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256-544-0034
ramon.j.osorio@nasa.gov

Ready to Register?

Submit your team’s information and get started today!

Learn More about Ready to Register?
Neil rolled up the Solar Wind Composition experiment at the end of the spacewalk and placed it inside the Apollo Lunar Sample Return Container that arrived in the Lunar Receiving Laboratory on July 26, 1969

Social Accounts