Space Prize Roundup: Shredder Challenge, Cost Saving Idea, Nanosat Allied Org, LEAG, more

This isn't a space prize, but it's an interesting one nonetheless: the DARPA Shredder Challenge.

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White House Selects NASA Idea for Savings - Lori Garver at NASA discusses the NASA finalist for the SAVE Award.

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YouTube Space Lab Competition Expands Panel of Prestigious Judges: YouTube and Lenovo Tap Renowned Science and Technology Experts to Ignite Students' Interest in Space - press release at CNBC - The new Teachers in Space effort is well represented.

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NASA And Space Florida Small Satellite Research Center Partner In Space Launch Challenge - This is a NASA press release on the long-awaited selection of the allied organization for the $2M Nano-Satellite Launch Challenge


2nd Nanosat Launcher Challenge Seminar Draft Agenda Updated 11/2/2011 - Team Phoenicia presents the latest update on the schedule for the Nano-Satellite Launch Challenge seminar.  This includes Space Florida, NASA representatives, spaceports, potential suppliers and teams, and more.  The seminar is this weekend, and a parallel seminar covers NASA's other Centennial Challenges.

@unrocket: Saturday I'm going to NanoSat conference. I really like this particular Centennial challenge, IMHO best one yet.. (http://www.nasa.gov/offices/oct/early_stage_innovation/centennial_challenges/nano_satellite/index.html)

Space Florida promises Virgin Galactic payloads - Florida Today shows that Space Florida is keeping busy with space prize activity.  The researcher and payloads for the suborbital flight will be selected using a competition.  Part of the competition will be for Florida university students.

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NASA 2011 OPTIMUS PRIME Spinoff Video Contest - SpaceRef notes that registration is now open for the 2011 version of this contest.

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Teams selected for the 2012 CanSat competition - ESA on the high school finalists for the European CanSat competition

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NASA prepares for moon tourism - USA Today

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Rules have been updated - Sample Return Robot Challenge - WPI

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WSJ Innovator of the Year in Tech award for Elon Musk - RLV News

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Finding Commercial Applications for Laser Power Designed for Space - Space News

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FUTURE MISSIONS OF EXPLORATION AND SCIENCE (PDF)
FORGING INNOVATIVE PARTNERSHIPS I: COMMERCIAL LUNAR EXPLORATION (PDF) - The LEAG (Lunar Exploration Analysis Group) meeting agenda includes X PRIZE Foundation and Google Lunar X PRIZE team participation.

Notables sign letter to Congress in support of Commercial Crew - RLV News - This includes representatives of the X PRIZE Foundation and Google Lunar X PRIZE teams.

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Here is some news about some former Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge competitors, including their latest work and the Carmack 100kft Micro Prize:

Armadillo Stig-A rocket video
Briefs: Armadillo rocket snapshot; New Virgin Galactic vid
Masten Space update
Armadillo Stig snapshot
Briefs: Ben Brockert interview; Derek Deville interview
Briefs: Ben Brockert pt. 2; Ken Murphy interview
Derek Deville's Qu8k rocket in USA Today
Unreasonable composite tank test - all from RLV News

Space Prize for DBAs, Copter Ropes, Sample Return Sponsors, Radical Benefit, Lots and Lots of Student Competions, More

Potential Sponsors for Competitors - Sample Return Robot Challenge

WPI Receives Accreditation for First-in-the-Nation Robotics Engineering Undergraduate Degree Program -Worcester Polytechnic Institute - WPI's management of the Sample Return Robot Challenge, the Regolith Excavation Challenge win, and FIRST Robotics competitions are all mentioned.

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NASA Sponsors 2011 Western Region Robotics Competition - NASA Ames

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Here's some recent information from the X PRIZE Foundation:

Welcome to the Blog - Archon Genomics X PRIZE:

... our team will be making a major announcement regarding this PRIZE on October 26, 2011 in New York City. 

@PeterDiamandis: Great #xprize benefit, just recovering! Thanks to @wendySchmidt, @JamesCameron and @AliVelshi for amazing help. $2.7M raised to fund XPF!

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Mars Education Challenge Webinar #3 will be held by David Black - Explore Mars - The webinar will be held on October 24.  Also: 

Over the next couple of months, Explore Mare plans to have all of the other MEC winners present their materials in special webinars to help guarantee that these materials are as widely distributed as possible.  We hope that these education webinars will also build up excitement about the 2011-2012 Mars Education Challenge was launched in September 2011.

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Gingrich calls for privatizing human spaceflight - Space Politics - Prizes are featured in Gingrich's proposal.

Newt Gingrich calls Space Launch System “disgraceful” pork - Space Frontier Foundation

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Student Rocketeers Wanted for World’s Largest Rocket Contest - The Aerospace Industries Association announces that the Team America Rocketry Challenge is open for registration.

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The following are all from Space for All:

NASA announces two microgravity contests for students - This is for the latest DIME and WING competitions.
IAA student art competition results
Jim Baen memorial contest for manned space sci-fi short stories
Reach for the Stars National Rocket Competition results

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SpaceVision 2011 - includes student biz plan competition - RLV News

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Military dangles prize for helicopter fast-rope solution - MSNBC: 

Problem-solvers must create a device — added to or replacing a glove — that has enough grip on a "FAST" rope for a controlled descent by someone weighing 300 to 400 pounds with gear. It must also somehow dissipate the heat that builds up from the friction between glove and rope, and allow Special Forces operators, soldiers or Marines to fire their weapon as soon as they touch the ground.

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Database Admins! Red Gate Wants To Send One Of You INTO SPACE - TechCrunch

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E. Coli Testing Technology From Yale Engineers Could Save Thousands Of Lives - Huffington Post: 

Weber told The Huffington Post that a prototype is still a year or so off, but the team's design was promising enough to take top honors at this year's NASA Tech Brief Engineering competition. It beat out 900 other designs from 50 countries for a $20,000 prize.

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NASA, NIA Announce 2012 Student Rover Contest - SpaceRef on the RASC-AL (Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts Academic Linkage) Exploration Robo-Ops Student Challenge

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10/15/2011: More Tether Testing - SpeedUp 

... our team will be making a major announcement regarding this PRIZE on October 26, 2011 in New York City.

Prize Roundup: Heinlein Prize, International Rocketry Challenge, CanSat winners, SEDS Conference, More

Heinlein Prize Honors Elon Musk of SpaceX - Heinlein Prize Trust

06/16/2011: Swing Test - SpeedUp

NASA And DARPA Offer Students Chance To Support Future Missions - NASA - This is for the Zero Robotics competition using floating SPHERES platforms on the International Space Station

The CanSat Competition has posted their 2011 Competition Winners and 2011 Cansat Photos.  Also, the 2012 mission has already been identified: Mission: Planetary Atmospheric Entry Vehicle.

Raytheon has a number of posts about the International Rocketry Challenge at the International Paris Air Show.  You can see all of them at their 2011 Paris Air Show - Team America Rocketry Challenge tag.  The most recent post is Raytheon-Sponsored Texas High School Team Wins International Rocket Fly-Off at Paris Air Show.

Northrop Grumman Announces Student Winners of Fourth Annual Engineering Scholars Program for Woodland Hills Facility - SpaceRef

SEDS Space Vision 2011 - RLV News - The early Speakers list for the conference includes a number of people with prize connections: Bill Nye (Executive Director of the Planetary Society, which has held a number of space competitions like the Apophis Mission Design Competition and numerous contests with themes like space art and mission names), Robert Richards (a Google Lunar X PRIZE competitor), Will Pomerantz (formerly of the X PRIZE Foundation), Jon Goff (who was part of the winning Masten Space Systems Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge team), and Ben Brockert (also from the Masten NG-LLC team, and now a member of another prize-winning NG-LLC team, Armadillo Aerospace).

Team Phoenicia sells first engine - RLV News

Briefs: Masten intern jobs; Langley lifting body event; Bruce Cordell interview - RLV News

White Label Space starts testing engines - RLV News

The next 2 links are from @ChallengeGov:

Now this is a cool ride! - The White House Blog discusses the Experimental Crowd-derived Combat-support Vehicle (XC2V).

The latest International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge opened on May 31. 

A TEA Party organization called TEA Party in Space has a platform that includes the following plank:

NASA shall use competitions and prizes whenever feasible to stimulate the private sector, including individual American inventors, to achieve innovative and affordable solutions to technological challenges.

Prize Roundup: Red Balloons, Patches, Elevator Conference, Google Earth Town Models, Mars Pathfinder Innovation, More

Eurospaceward Space Elevator / Lunar Industrialization Conference

@SEGames I'm here at the 2009 EuroSpaceward conference. Among other topics, we'll get an update on the US and Japanese Space Elevator Games.

@SEGames Jordin Kare (from LaserMotive) and Martin Lades (from KC Space Pirates) are here and will also speak.

@SEGames I'm live-blogging the conference at http://www.spaceelevatorblog.com/

There's a lot more from SEGames twitter - the tweet from a couple minutes ago says Jordin Kare is speaking now. I don't have a hash tag for the conference, but SEGames, Eurospaceward, Ben Shelef, and some of the teams are at my Space Elevator Games Twitter List.

EuroSpaceward Conference - and the future of Space Elevator Development - The Space Elevator Blog

In Luxembourg… - The Space Elevator Blog:

... I’ve been chosen to judge a coloring contest - “How do you Imagine Life on the Moon?” - an event held as part of the EuroSpaceward conference. ...

Conference - Day 1 - and we’re underway - The Space Elevator Blog

As with the SEGames twitter, I've just selected a few of many posts. Check out The Space Elevator Blog for more.

DARPA Network Challenge (Red Balloons) - today!

@ikluft about 2000 people registered for #DARPA #NetworkChallenge - don't forget to have fun! http://stratofox.org/redballoon

@ikluft I made a Twitter list of #DARPA #NetworkChallenge participants that I know of (41 so far) http://is.gd/5cUvW

Update on DARPA Network Challenge: @ikluft Congratulations to MIT Red Balloon Challenge Team for winning. We had 5 right 2 wrong #DARPA #NetworkChallenge

@ikluft updated Stratofox's #NetworkChallenge page: added "How we did" section, credits http://stratofox.org/redballoon #DARPA

N-Prize

@TeamPrometheus 2 Tiny Satellites just arrived at the Rocket Ranch! Photo's tomorrow! http://bit.ly/8lo1ij

More Prizes and Competitions

Model Your Town - Google Earth Blog:

Google has just announced their first-ever "Model Your Town" Competition.

The goal is to get smaller cities to work on building their town in 3D. While every town will likely see their models in Google Earth, the winning town will win $10,000 for its schools, a Google-sponsored party, a video profile of the winning team and some other goodies. ...

See the Google Earth Blog link for a video with some examples of town models in Google Earth.

SGAC together with the UN-SPIDER have designated a winner of the “Disaster Management in the Caribbean” poster competition - Space Generation Advisory Council

NASA Student Launch - Space for All

NASA Moon Work Design Contest - Space for All

@collectSPACE Picking a patch for the program: NASA's employee contest to design a patch for the end of the space shuttle program... http://bit.ly/7iaiO4

Mission to Mars and Red Planet make John Scalzi’s list of worst SF films of decade - Marooned: Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror books on Mars - From the Scalzi piece:

The year 2000 saw two competing Mars flicks, which struggled fiercely for the title of Most Likely to Set Back Manned Exploration of Mars by 50 Years. ...

Sci-Fri: NASA and Microsoft launch Martian website, use crowdsourcing to map Red Planet - Marooned: Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror books on Mars - The Be a Martian! site includes the 2009 Pathfinder Innovation Challenge. Here are the contest rules (PDF). I couldn't figure out specifically what the various categories of contestants were meant to do from the rules, but the Participation Guide (PDF) explains it. Here's the summary:

... The Inspiration League invites Entrants 14 years and older to develop an episode for "The Martians" video series. Join the Scholarship League if you're over 14 and would like to build a compelling and exciting interactive web application for students and the rest of the world to learn about rocks on Earth and Mars. Entrants over age 18 in the Global Cooperation League will develop fun web games that crowd-source the task of finding and labeling interesting objects in an enormous set of images acquired by the Mars rovers. The Intelligence League challenges Entrants over age 18 to accomplish the same task with autonomous applications that can rapidly detect and label these interesting objects.

Stratofox and the DARPA Network Challenge

This Saturday, DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) is holding the DARPA Network Challenge. DARPA describes this $40,000 challenge as

a competition that will explore the roles the Internet and social networking play in the timely communication, wide-area team-building, and urgent mobilization required to solve broad-scope, time-critical problems.

The rules are on the site, but the basic idea is that DARPA will deploy 10 big numbered red weather balloons with official DARPA representatives on site at various locations across the U.S., and the winner will be the one to identify the locations of these balloons. DARPA expects the winner to need to form large, geographically dispersed but communicating teams to be able to find the balloons. There's also the possibility, if "reality TV" is any indication, that some competitors will try to publish misleading information about the balloon locations. Competitors can only submit a limited number of locations, which may make it difficult to simply trust locations that are made public without some sort of confirmation. Other complications and innovative approaches may be revealed on the day of the challenge.

You could see how certain aerospace technology, such as Google Earth or other geographical information systems technology, GPS, satellite telecommuncations, and remote sensing via satellite or airplane (or balloon?) might play a role in this challenge, but the predominant technology may be social media - especially if your team can get thousands upon thousands of people looking with you. The DARPA Network Challenge Wiki covers some possible strategies. Does the space community have the social organization and enthusiasm to get thousands of participants looking for balloons as they go about their regular Saturday activities?

One of the teams registered for the Challenge is Stratofox, a highly skilled amateur "aerospace tracking & recovery team". I've seen a couple Stratofox presentations at Space Access. The team has expertise in finding balloons, but under different circumstances - tracking and recovering high-altitude balloons. They often work with small rocket entrepreneurs and researchers. They certainly play a role supporting the type of innovative work that space prize competitions seek to encourage. Here's a detailed post from Stratofox on what they're doing with the DARPA Network Challenge and how to help them (especially if you see and confirm one of the balloons): DARPA Network Challenge 2009. There are also some twitter posts about it at @ikluft.

Here are some additional general information sources for the Challenge:

@DARPA_News (twitter)
Balloon hunt goes viral - Cosmic Log
Looking for Balloons and Insights to Online Behavior - New York Times: This one notes that we can expect more DARPA challenges in the future:

Dr. Lee said the agency would continue to pursue a number of large and small challenge-style contests to foster what he described as new ways to tap into pools of talented individuals and creative groups.

Prize Roundup: Best Ideas, Google Earth Climate Change, Michigan Tech Nanosat Team, Heinlein SF Award, More

Climate change tools for Google Earth - Google Earth Blog:

... In addition, they're asking you to submit your own thoughts and questions on climate change to their channel, and some of these videos will be broadcast on screens around the conference in December. The top rated video submissions will win a trip to Copenhagen, so submit your videos and see if you can win the prize.

To the Moon, Rover! - UCF Today

Seems like yesterday... - RLV News on an important anniversary

New USST Video on YouTube - The Space Elevator Blog

Ten Best New Space Ideas - Matt Wronkiewicz's Weblog - Number 8 is X PRIZEs.

InnoCentive ~ Innovation Marketplace For Ideas - Maximizing Progress

Tech Tour Day Three: A Tour De Force At MTU - WWJ News Radio:

... I met with four members of the Michigan Tech Aerospace Enterprise team, who are designing a small Earth satellite that will help authorities track dangerous space junk. ... the Aerospace Enterprise is competing in the United States Air Force's Nanosatellite competition. The program has 11 student teams around the country design a small, affordable satellite with space-to-space imaging that will track other satellites and space debris, as well as contain a model to calibrate the ground-based telescopes that monitor space junk. ... The Aerospace Enterprise is also working on the High Altitude Autonomous Research Platform, an autonomous glider designed to take pictures up to 35,000 feet, and the Cansat Project, a university competition that sees the students design and build a rocket payload that must return to earth at a determined speed, right itself once it lands, and transmit data all the while.

Here's a link to the MTU Aerospace Enterprise team, and here's one for the University Nanosatellite Program

Space Tourism - Taking Off? - The National Space Society of Phoenix

BSFS Heinlein Award - Science Fiction Awards Watch: The winners of the 2009 BSFS Robert. A Heinlein Award are Joe Haldeman and John Varley.

Also see posts on the same topic from the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America and Locus. As Locus notes: The award is for "outstanding published works in science fiction and technical writings to inspire the human exploration of space."

@planetarytv - I uploaded a YouTube video -- PTV - Team America Rocketry Challenge 2010 http://bit.ly/1PnXHo

An Update on Design Judging - X PRIZE Cars

Prize Roundup: MoonBots Discussions, SmallSat Conference, Orbital Depots, Tether/Elevator Book, Underwater Vehicle Winners

Check out (and join!) the following discussion in the Google Lunar X PRIZE Community Forums: MoonBots: A Google Lunar X PRIZE LEGO MINDSTORMS Challenge

MoonBots Robotics Competition Announced - Design News

This reminds me of a fun discussion from a while back on what it would take for a LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT robot to win the original Google Lunar X PRIZE: NXT and Lunar X PRIZE - The NXT STEP Blog

LEGO Picorover Mockup - Team FREDNET at the Google Lunar X PRIZE Teams page

The SmallSat Conference in Logan, Utah is scheduled for this August 10-13. On Wednesday, Google Lunar X PRIZE preferred partner Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) will present "Falcon 1 Flight Results and Multiple Payload Integration". In addition, Wednesday also includes the Frank J. Redd Student Scholarship Competition.

A Summer CubeSat Developers' Workshop will also be held there August 8-9. Here's the schedule (PDF). Google Lunar X PRIZE preferred partner Analytical Graphics, Inc. has a talk on Saturday titled "STK and CubeSat's". In addition, Randa Milliron of Interorbital Systems, a part of the SYNERGY MOON Google Lunar X PRIZE team, has a talk on Sunday on "TubeSat".

These are just samples of the diverse presentations in this dynamic and important field.

A team including Jon Goff of Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenger Masten Space Systems recently submitted a white paper on Depot-Centric Human Spaceflight to the "Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee". From the Executive Summary of the paper:

On-orbit storage and transfer of propellants are key capabilities that enable innovative transportation methods for multiple destinations beyond earth orbit, stimulate the commercial spaceflight industry, and allow for sustainable and affordable manned exploration beyond LEO using existing commercial launch vehicles. We find reason to believe that a depot-centric transportation approach will allow NASA’s manned space program to operate in a manner that is exceptionally responsive to the objectives given the Augustine Committee.

Prizes are briefly mentioned in the paper:

A depot-centric transportation network enables and encourages the development of an open architecture—one that multiple commercial and international entities can easily interact with and that is not tied to any one specific destination. ... We can further multiply this effect through the use of prizes and COTS-like programs, as well as more traditional SBIR and Broad Area Announcement solicitations.

At one point, NASA Centennial Challenges was considering a Fuel Depot Demonstration Challenge (PDF) - see slide page 18.

The Space Elevator Games are briefly mentioned in this article: Seeking 'Discouraged' Energy Questers - Dot Earth (The New York Times)

Space Tethers and Space Elevators - The Space Elevator Blog
Review: Space Tethers and Space Elevators - The Space Review - These discuss a new book by Michel Van Pelt on subjects relevant to the Space Elevator Games.

@http://twitter.com/Bob_Richards - Breakfast with TedPrize Winner Jill Tarter b4 her #ISU talk. Would love to see her Wish come true http://bit.ly/3mQa2p

Here's some information about the recent Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition - which means "no remote controls". The competition was held in San Diego a few days ago.

12th Annual International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition - Go Robotics.net

CUAUV - Cornell University Autonomous Underwater Vehicle blog - the 2009 winners

Cornell Wins the 12th Annual Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition - Go Robotics.net

UCF/IST Submersible Team Gets 4th Place - UCF Today (University of Central Florida)

Space Prize Roundup: Elevator Postponed, GLXP LEGO MoonBots, NASA Lunabotics Mining, Conrad Award & AIAA, AUVSI, Apophis Round 2?, NGLLC, GLXP

Here are a few items that happened while I was away:

Space Elevator Contest Held Up - Aviation Week - A technical issue with a helicopter cable system is forcing the Spaceward Foundation to postpone the Space Elevator Power Beaming Challenge Games originally scheduled for this summer at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center. ... the problems cropped up during tests of the helicopter-mounted cable system last week.

Review: Space Tethers and Space Elevators - The Space Review (article by Jeff Foust)

Some Regolith Excavation team updates... - Green Cheese Solutions - This post mentions updates from Team Waldbaum, SpaceMiners, and Terra Engineering, which plans to test the BFD (Big Freewheeling Bigger) this upcoming weekend.

@Regolith_Chal - Posted a diagram for the provided communications link, check the FAQ for details. http://regoltih.csewi.org/faq

NASA Announces Lunar Exploration Competition for Students - SpaceRef

NASA Lunabotics Mining Competition - The Lunabotics Mining Competition will be similar to the Regolith Excavation Challenge NASA Centennial Challenge.

Announcing Our 5th Payload, a British Science Instrument... - Odyssey Moon on the Google Lunar X PRIZE Teams site - Moonlink has signed up with the International Space School Educational Trust (ISSET) to set aside one kilogram of payload capacity on Odyssey Moon’s “MoonOne” lunar lander, to be launched to the Moon in late 2012. Moonlink will be heading up a county wide competition driving innovation in schools, universities, and local industry in the form of a competition to design, build, and fly an experiment to the Moon.

Looking Back, Hopping Forward - Draper Laboratory showcases Google Lunar X-Prize project at Apollo celebration. - MIT Technology Review

NEO News (07/30/09) Impact on Jupiter - Planetary Defense - The prize part of this post is from the Planetary Society. Here's an excerpt: Apophis Mission Design Competition: Last year's successful competition designed ways to tag and track this asteroid. The next step might be to design a mission to send human investigators to explore and characterize a threatening object, such as Apophis.

“Moonbots” Challenges Parent-Child Teams to Conduct Google Lunar X Prize Missions With Lego Robots - Press release from the X PRIZE Foundation - The X PRIZE Foundation, Google Inc., LEGO Systems, National Instruments, and Wired’s GeekDad will announce “MoonBots: A Google Lunar X PRIZE LEGO® MINDSTORMS® Challenge” today at National Instruments NIWeek 2009. The new contest will challenge small teams comprised of children and adults to design, program, and construct robots that perform simulated lunar missions similar to those required to win the $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE ...The competition will encourage the participants to use free software tools such as Google’s SketchUp, LEGO’s Digital Designer, National Instruments LabVIEW, and Google’s YouTube platform to delineate how their entry will be constructed and how their team will function.

moonbots.org - for upcoming information on the competition

@MoonBots - twitter

Enter This Contest and Race to the Moon - GeekDad

AUVSI 2009 International Aerial Robotics Competition Videos and JAUS - I Heart Robotics

SMCPS Receives $100,000 Stem Grant - Southern Maryland Online - The elementary "STEM for ALL" portion of the grant will provide all elementary schools with LEGO Robotics Kits and the resources necessary to offer all interested students a chance to participate on a robotics team at their school. Additionally, an engineering challenge will be designed integrating concepts from the science and mathematics curriculum for third grade students. ... For the STEM 10 engineering course, funds will be used to allow students to participate and compete in the Team America Rocketry Challenge and the Botball Educational Robotics program.

Government Prize Money for Smart Ideas and Technology - Allgov.com - This post points out the following report: Federally Funded Innovation Inducement Prizes (by Deborah D. Stine, Congressional Research Service) (PDF)

Conrad Foundation Announces AIAA As The Official Aerospace Partner Of The 2010 Pete Conrad Spirit Of Innovation Awards - California Space Authority

Masten Space test flights video - RLV News

From Unreasonable Rocket:

Update...
Observations from the fireing
This camera gave its life to provide you with this video

Prize Roundup - July 21-22, 2009: Flickr Moon, Lunar Lander and Lunar X PRIZE Updates, More Google Moon, NASA Lunar Science Forum, Aerial Robotics

New design overcomes intense lunar heat -David Gump, Astrobotic Technology - Is this related to the IPP Seed Fund award for CMU, Astrobotic, and LM?

International Aerial Robotics Competition - July 20-24, at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez

Check @nlsi - NASA Lunar Science Institute. I think I need to add it to the Twitter list. Here are some other tweats from the NLSI NLSI Lunar Science Forum:

@Regolith_Chal - Thanks @pomerantz for the shout out during your presentation during the @nlsi Lunar Science Forum! #lunarsci09

@Pomerantz - #GLXP team leader @Bob_Richards teases the announcement going out in the few hours--another new customer! Kudos!

3 Months to go and beyond. - Unreasonable Rocket ponders the 2009 Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge deadline, and next year's challenge:

What happens after 2009? If the any of the 180 second prizes are un-won we will obviously attempt that. Beyond that we want to work toward a reusable sub-orbital vehicle.

NG-LLC update - RLV News
Armadillo Methane/LOX untethered flight - RLV News

@glxp - The X PRIZE Foundation is now a member of the Next Step in Space coalition! http://www.nextstepinspace.com/index.html

More random moon stuff! The MyMoon Flickr contest: http://www.flickr.com/group... (thx @NLSI)

If you aren't already, check @Pomerantz and @glxp for lots more news.

Explore the moon in Google Earth - The Official Google Blog (posted by Anousheh Ansari)

Prize Roundup - June 23, 2009

@wikkit - http://twitpic.com/7y2lu - Paul Breed demonstrates an autonomous helicopter flight at FAR today.

(That was posted on June 20).

@worden - Was just at the Pentagon talking about cool airships - green, low cost means to transport people and cargo

(Based on this conversation I suspect he knows about the Airship Z-Prize proposal, too).

Speaking of airships, Up Ship! was just at the Vertical Challenge, which sounds like an aviation prize competition, but was actually a helicopter air show.

New ARCA Site - ARCA at Google Lunar X PRIZE Teams site

UAV competition draws students from 18 colleges - DCMilitary.com - The student teams, judges, staff and sponsors were met with near perfect weather for this year's competition. The object for the flying portion of the competition was for an unmanned, radio controllable, aircraft to be launched and transition, or continue, to autonomous flight. It was then to navigate a specified course and use onboard payload sensors to locate and assess a series of man-made targets before returning to the launch point for landing. Each team was required to complete the task within 40 minutes.

The Autonomous Surface Vehicle competition and the IGVC (Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition) were also held recently. Here's some news from those competitions:

ERAU competes with unmanned vehicles - Campus News (Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University)

AUVSI International Autonomous Surface Vehicle Competition - ASV Competition page with videos and other information from the competition

Robot boats vie for best rescue in Beach competition - Hampton Roads.com

aonomus ASV - photos

It's been a while... - John Fertitta

PSU Robotics - 2009 IGVC Competition photos

Prize Roundup - February 9, 2009

sh00ting-st4rs - This journal features an internship involving lunar regolith diggers and lunar landers at NASA MSFC.

Gregory Pappas of Chicago, Ill., Named Special Advisor to The American College - Greek News -
... He also serves on the Advisory Council of the X Prize Foundation ...

International Aerial Robotics Competition - Wiki

Space tourism contests - RLV News - In the comments to the Popular Mechanics article, there's a mention of a Rovers on the Moon student essay contest and a Google Lunar X PRIZE team sponsorship.

Briefs: Unreasonable update; Euro space tourism challenges - RLV News

The X PRIZE Foundation has some posts about TED:

The Odds are Good, but... - The Launch Pad

X PRIZE at TED and a Crazy Green Idea - Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE blog

Here's another from the PIAXP:

Progressive Automotive X PRIZE at The Washington Auto Show

Unmanned Vehicle Competition Dates and Outback UAV Challenge

Here are dates for the 2009 versions of some of the student robotic vehicle competitions:

International Aerial Robotics Competition (IARC) - The next event will be held during July, 2009. The venue will be the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez (UPRM) which is located in the city of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. A 2009 Winner receives: $10,000

Seventh Annual Student Unmanned Systems (UAS) Competition - Naval Air - June 17 - June 21, 2009

The 17th Annual Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition - Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan on June 5 - June 8, 2009

Student Autonomous Underwater Competition – Europe (SAUC-E) 2009 - Entrant forms complete by end of May 2009. The competition takes place in July 2009.

I don't know the information for the 2009 U.S. Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) Competition or the Autonomous Surface Vehicle (ASV) Competition.

The AUVSI Student Competitions site lists one I hadn't heard of before: 2008 UAV Challenge - Outback Rescue. It has an Australian high school component, and video documentary component, and an open search and rescue challenge that's not just open to Australian students, but also to anyone worldwide. The mission involves finding and assisting 'Outback Joe', a lost bush walker in Australia's vast outback using UAVs. It was held in September, with $70,000 in prizes available.

TechX Challenge Results

It looks like the TechX Challenge results are posted by Singapore's DSTA. As often happens with these challenges, there were no winners the first year. Will there be a second year?

More Details on Wearable Power Prize Winners

At first I could only find the identities of the winners; now there's a lot of information and several press releases available.

DuPont, Smart Fuel Cell AG Win Wearable Power Prize Competition - DuPont News - The lightweight M-25 fuel cell combines DuPont’s direct methanol fuel cell technology with SFC’s commercially proven fuel cell systems, products, and integration expertise. ... The M-25 standard design, when worn by soldiers in the field for extended missions, is up to 80 percent lighter than conventional power sources, yet capable of powering a wide range of soldier equipment, such as digital communication and navigation equipment.

DuPont takes Wearable Power Prize- Riverside Press-Enterprise - This includes a video and pictures. It explains the military and civilian (eg: camping) business opportuntities for lower-weight wearable power systems. How much financial investment did the prize encourage?

Their project, including plane fare to California, cost them about $10,000 they said.

Other teams spent $100,000 or more on their prototypes. DuPont's Baunchalk wouldn't say what his team had spent other than it was "significant." He would not confirm whether the million-dollar prize would cover the investment or not.
...
"We've lost, in this nation, a little bit of the science and engineering edge, Shaffer said. "We have a tremendous capacity for innovation. It's this kind of competition that creates the leap forward."

Direct-methanol fuel cell takes DoD prize - EE Times

Adaptive Materials Places 2nd, Wins $500,000 in Department of Defense Research & Engineering Prize - Adaptive Materials News - Adaptive Materials, the leading manufacturer of solid oxide fuel cells, recently placed second among 47 competitors in the Department of Defense Research & Engineering’s Prize. The company’s lightweight fuel cells rose to the challenge, outperforming leading battery and fuel cell companies to help the company capture the competition’s $500,000 second prize.

The public relations power of prize competitions is noted: “Prior to the Prize competition, awareness of Adaptive Materials’ propane-powered solid oxide fuel cells was limited to industry experts, so it’s an exciting win that will build visibility and credibility for technology that a lot of people didn’t even know exists.

The winners always have to figure out what to do with the prize money. Here's one way: Adaptive Materials will share $30,000 of its Prize with all employees. The funds will be awarded as a performance bonus to all Adaptive Materials’ employees with the company on August 31, 2008.

SFC Fuel Cells Wins Dept. of Defense “Wearable Power Competition” - Earth2Tech - SFC was part of 2 of the 3 winning entries.

Wearable Power Prize Won

DDR&E Wearable Power Prize Winners - $1.75M in prizes (i.e. all it) was won; this shows the first, second, and third place winners.

Wearable Power Competition Finals Today

Aviation Week blog posts tagged with "Wearable Power Prize" - team interviews, etc

Rayovac Enters Portable Power Pack in DoD Wearable Power Prize Competition - Flashlight News

Competition: the Wearable Power System - Military.com - October 3

list of 48 finalists (PDF) - announced September 15

Final 20 Teams Compete For DoD $1M Wearable Power Prize - Defense-Aerospace.com - September 20: University of Maine students and brothers Chris and Brandon Look were one of 169 original entries to make it to the final testing round. “Our dad is an engineer and owns a construction company, so we’ve always been interested in anything mechanical,” said Brandon, who is a volunteer firefighter. “Chris serves in the Army National Guard, so in a sense, we’re both ground pounders. We know from experience what might benefit the guys in the field.”

list of 20 finalists

Military Prize Roundup - September 22, 2008

The Wearable Power Prize competition check-in starts today at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, CA. The whole event is on until October 4. Here's the full schedule for the final event. Some highlights:

Oct. 3, 2008: Kids’ Day
Area schools have been invited to bring classes for a day of learning about the WPP objectives and the science and technology behind them. In addition, the students will tour the competition site and exhibits from competitors, major DoD laboratories, and the military service branches.

Oct. 4, 2008: Prize Day
0700: Opening Ceremony featuring the U.S. Marine Corps Band
0800 – 1500: Technology Showcase opens
0900 – 1300: WPP Field Test / Power Wear-Off
1500: Prize ceremony
1500: Technology Showcase closes

Meanwhile, Singapore's TechX Challenge final event was September 21 (yesterday). I didn't see information about the winners yet.

The British MOD's Grand Challenge winners were announced on August 19. The winner was Team Stellar (not the GLXP team) and their SATURN.

2009 Aerial Robotics Competition

International Aerial Robotics Competition 5th Mission -

During the 4th Mission, teams had already demonstrated all of the required aerial robotic behaviors mandated in the IARC Rules, except being able to demonstrate all of these behaviors seamlessly in under 15 minutes ... The 5th Mission requires a fully autonomous aerial subvehicle - launched from a "mother ship" - to penetrate a building and negotiate the more complex interior space containing hallways, small rooms, obstacles, and dead ends in order to search for a designated target without the aid of global-positioning navigational aids, and relay pictures back to a monitoring station some distance from the building.

The 5th Mission will continue to adhere to the Competition's 18-year practice of posing tasks that cannot be completed with current technology and skills. As with previous missions, nothing within the World military or industrial arsenal of robots will be able to complete the proposed mission at the time the guidelines are released.

rules

Live Underwater Video Streaming

TodoCast™ Brings Live Webcasting of Underwater Videography to 11th Annual Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition - ToDoCast press release:

TodoCast™, the innovator of the world's first affordable, portable, live satellite-to-web video streaming system, today announced the success of live underwater video streaming at this year's 11th Annual International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition held earlier this month. ...

Diverse Autonomous Robot Student Competitions

I mentioned the AUVSI International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition at the bottom of this post a couple weeks ago. To follow up:

Scientific hopefuls dive headfirst into challenge - Gizmos duel in underwater robotics bout - Peninsula Beacon News - This covers the Underwater competition, and mentions the surface competition that should be being held now (Aug 7 - 9) at the same location this year.

Here's a press release on the winner of the competition, the University of Maryland. Now they're getting ready for the Autonomous Robot Speedway a bit closer to home (at the College Park campus). It sounds like they must have had a lot of fault tolerance with the various challenges they overcame.

They used the Neutral Buoyancy Research Facility (NBRF) and the University Space Systems Lab during their testing.

Here's the Robotics at Maryland winning team site. It includes lots of posts (including some from the competition), pictures, and videos.

The press release also mentions another UMD win: Project TURTLE Wins NASA Competition - From the PR:

A team of aerospace engineering students won first place in the undergraduate division of NASA's Revolutionary Advanced Systems Concepts - Academic Liaison (RASC-AL) student design competition in Cocoa Beach, Fla. Project TURTLE (Terrapin Undergraduate Rover for Terrestrial Lunar Exploration).