Top innovators at Watts on the Moon Challenge awarded $1.5M

Top innovators at Watts on the Moon Challenge awarded $1.5M
by Clarence Oxford
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Oct 16, 2024

Great Lakes Science Center, which serves as the visitor center for NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, hosted the final phase of NASA's Watts on the Moon Challenge on September 20. NASA astronaut Stephen Bowen was present to recognize the top winners.

NASA distributed a total of $1.5 million in awards to two U.S. teams for their innovative solutions in energy distribution, management, and storage as part of the challenge. The technologies developed through this competition aim to support NASA's Artemis program, which seeks to establish a sustainable human presence on the Moon.

The Watts on the Moon Challenge consisted of two phases, pushing U.S. innovators to create advanced technologies to facilitate long-term lunar missions, furthering the nation's lunar exploration objectives.

The top teams were:

+ First Prize ($1 million): Team H.E.L.P.S. (High Efficiency Long-Range Power Solution) from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Their hardware solution demonstrated the lowest mass and highest efficiency among all the competing teams.

+ Second Prize ($500,000): Orbital Mining Corporation, a space technology startup based in Golden, Colorado, received the second prize for their hardware solution, which also excelled during the 48-hour performance test.

In the final stage of the competition, four teams were selected to refine their hardware and produce full system prototypes. Three teams successfully completed their technology demonstrations at NASA Glenn.

Mary Wadel, director of Technology Integration and Partnerships at NASA Glenn, acknowledged the effort required to bring the challenge to a close. Rob Button, deputy chief of Glenn's Power Division, and his team of specialists organized and executed the challenge, as well as supervised the testing phase.

The technologies presented were the first power transmission and energy storage prototypes tested by NASA in a vacuum chamber replicating the frigid temperatures and vacuum conditions of the Moon's permanently shadowed regions at the Lunar South Pole.

The Watts on the Moon Challenge is part of NASA's Centennial Challenges and has been led by NASA Glenn since its launch, with the center serving as the agency's primary facility for power systems technology development.