NASA invites teams from colleges, universities, and technical and vocational schools across the country to showcase their engineering capabilities in the 2025 Lunabotics Challenge. Applications open at 5 p.m. EDT on Friday, September 6. The goal of the competition is to inspire students of the Artemis Generation to engage in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) for the benefit of humanity.
Led by NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement, the Lunabotics Challenge challenges teams to design and build an autonomous or telerobotic robot capable of navigating a simulated lunar surface and completing the assigned construction task. Robots must master the complexity of regolith, or lunar soil, used to excavate and build berm structures in a lunar environment, be operable by remote control or autonomous operations, and accommodate weight and size constraints.
By participating in one of NASA’s Artemis Student Challenges, students have the opportunity to provide data on the design and operation of robotic excavators and construction equipment, helping to shape future missions to the Moon and ultimately Mars. NASA encourages creative design techniques and evaluates students’ designs and data in the same way it evaluates its own prototypes, increasing the chances of finding smart solutions to the challenges the agency may face on the Moon during the Artemis campaign.
In addition, the competition will introduce college students to NASA’s systems engineering process, the agency’s methodical, multidisciplinary approach to the design, implementation, technical management, operation, and decommissioning of a system.
The competition ends on Thursday, September 12, and NASA will announce the selected teams on Friday, September 20. These teams will put their robots to the test during the University of Central Florida’s Lunabotics Qualification Challenge in May 2025. The teams with the highest scores will be invited to the final event at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida later that month.
Held annually since 2010, Lunabotics is one of several Artemis Student Challenges that reflect the goals of the Artemis Campaign, whose goal is to land the first woman, first person of color, and first international astronaut on the Moon, where NASA will establish a long-term presence and prepare for future scientific investigations and exploration of Mars.
More than 7,000 students have participated in Lunabotics locally or at their schools, and many former students now work at NASA or in the aerospace industry.
To learn more about LUNABOTICS, visit:
https://go.nasa.gov/4dcsjVg
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Abbey Donaldson
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
[email protected]
Derrol Nagel
Kennedy Space Center, Florida
321-289-9513
[email protected]
