NASA is Upping the Power on its Lunar Wattage Challenge! - Universe Today universetoday storybywid
. This competition is entering Phase II and will award an additional $4.5 million for innovative concepts that supply power to future lunar missions.For this challenge, NASA is not seeking proposals for power generation but innovative engineering approaches for integrating power transmission and energy storage into lunar missions. Specifically, these solutions will need to support astronauts, hardware, and systems in the conditions prevalent in the South-Pole Aitken Basin.
In addition to NASA, the European Space Agency , the China National Space Agency , and Roscosmos are all eying this region as a site for future bases. While these craters present numerous advantages , they also present several hazards. These environments are not subject to the extreme variations that occur around the equator, where temperatures range from -173 to 117 °C .
On the other hand, polar craters are permanently shadowed, and temperatures are perennially freezing, averaging -269 °C . Current proposals for lunar bases include placing solar arrays around the crater’s rim, but these are still limited by the extended periods of darkness and light around the poles – which last for 706 hours at a time. As such, NASA and other space agencies are looking for options to provide power during extended periods of darkness.
The first phase of the competition ran from September 2020 to May 2021 and focused on theoretical approaches to energy management, distribution, and storage solutions. In the end, seven competitors were awarded a total of $500,000 in prize money for their approaches, which showed considerable promise. As a result, NASA and HeroX have launched Phase 2 to allow the winners to develop and demonstrate their proposals in simulated lunar conditions.
For this phase, NASA is looking for solutions that can be designed, built, and then tested in a simulated lunar environment with conditions mirroring the real thing . NASA also seeks solutions that can proceed toward flight readiness and future operation on the surface after the challenge is complete. It is also essential that these proposals work with ideas for power generation, which NASA is pursuing through many programs.
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