Monday, February 06, 2012

Space Prize Roundup: Night Rover Plans, Sample Return Updates, SFF Biz Plans, Visualizing Science, Data Fusion, SPHERES, more

The Night Rover Challenge is presenting a slide presentation on its main page: Night Rover Challenge - January 2012.  In addition to the main challenge itself, they are planning a number of related events, including an innovation summit, student competitions, educational events, technology expositions and workshops, and more.  Anousheh Ansari is featured as one of the board members, along with a number of other prominent innovators.

Scientific visions that take the prize - Cosmic Log

Space Frontier Foundation and NASA Announce $110,000 in NewSpace Business Plan Competition Prizes - Space Frontier Foundation

List of Competitors
Sponsorship Opportunity from Clearpath Robotics
Proposal Review Complete - all 3 from Sample Return Robot Challenge

Candidate Gingrich Promises Space Coast Voters the Moon - Space News
Gingrich offers new goals but same philosophy in space speech - Space Politics - Prizes are featured prominently in Gingrich's proposal to overhaul NASA and encourage a thriving LEO economy, fast propulsion to Mars, and a lunar base.  Gingrich would also take a close look at alternatives to some of NASA's larger programs, such as the SLS, MPCV, and JWST.

2012 IEEE GRSS Data Fusion Contest - IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society: 

This year, participants will download three different sets of images (optical, SAR, and LIDAR) over the downtown of San Francisco and each participant will get to choose their own research topic to work with.  Participants will receive a collection of images provided by DigitalGlobe, AstriumServices, and USGS that includes very-high spatial resolution QuickBird, WorldView-2, TerraSAR-X, and LIDAR data.

ERDAS IMAGINE-DigitalGlobe 2012 Geospatial Challenge - DigitalGlobe - This contest uses DigitalGlobe WorldView-2 satellite imagery and ERDAS IMAGINE image processing software.  Winners are to be announced on February 15.

Robots go head to head, 250 miles above Earth - Third annual Zero Robotics competition pits robots against each other on the International Space Station. - MIT News

The Race to Build a Real Star Trek Tricorder - Popular Mechanics

The 19th Annual Great Moonbuggy Race will be held April 13-14.  Registration ends on February 10.

World’s largest rocket contest helps aspiring STEM leaders take off - Aerospace Industries Association