NASA’s Artemis campaign is a series of lunar missions to further explore the lunar landscape to prepare for future missions to Mars. The Artemis missions will send humans to land on the moon and explore the lunar south pole. This will be NASA’s first human lunar landing since the Apollo missions over 50 years ago. The Artemis missions will be landing at the lunar south pole; this area is of interest because the permanently shadowed regions that exist there may be traps for water ice which could be accessed to support future missions to Mars. One area of interest is Shackleton Crater, measuring 13 miles (21 km) in diameter and 2.6 miles (4.2 km) deep. The crater has steep sides and continuous shadows cause the floor of the crater to be below 90 K and may have water ice trapped beneath the surface.

To support these missions, NASA is seeking two solutions: one low-tech and one high-tech. While both solutions are related to navigation, they are independent challenges and solutions.

For Challenge 1, NASA is seeking an orienteering aid that will help the astronauts navigate on traverses away from the lunar lander and return back. While there were similar devices available to the Apollo astronauts, NASA is looking for new and unique solutions. Among other considerations, devices must be accurate, easy to use, able to be used on the moon’s surface by an astronaut wearing pressurized gloves. If your solution is one of the best, you could be eligible for a share of the $15,000 prize purse.

For Challenge 2, NASA is looking for assistance in getting to and mapping the bottom of Shackleton Crater. The design must work in the extreme conditions of the lunar south pole and Shackleton Crater, map the crater, characterize and quantify what is in the crater, and send the data back to be used for future missions. If you can solve this challenge by describing your design concept in detail, you could be eligible for a share of the $30,000 prize purse.

In addition, there is $5,000 in prize money to be distributed among solutions from both challenges that show exceptional achievement.

See the full rules, including Eligibility Requirements under the Guidelines Tab.

The early Artemis missions will face many new challenges. One of them will be orienteering at the lunar south pole which is complicated by the extreme light and shadows from the low sun elevation. These conditions make it harder for the astronauts to orient themselves by only line of sight when performing Extravehicular Activities (EVAs). In addition, NASA is interested in low-tech devices to provide emergency backup navigation during missions using rovers and other mobility systems. The conditions and requirements for these devices create unique challenges that must be addressed.

The devices must operate in the environment on the lunar surface where NASA plans to land the next astronauts on the moon (see: NASA Identifies Candidate Regions for Landing Next Americans on Moon – NASA). In order to meet the early Artemis mission schedule and to provide a later back-up capability, these devices cannot rely on power, electronics, or software. While the devices could use software on Earth to, for example, calculate data or inputs for use, the devices cannot rely on software internal to the devices to operate.

Astronauts will wear pressurized suits while on EVAs including pressurized gloves that can make it more difficult and strenuous to grasp objects. Also, during the EVAs the astronauts will be focusing on making observations and collecting samples. Because of these considerations the devices should be intuitive, easy to learn and use, and operable while wearing pressurized gloves.

When adding an item to a mission’s manifest, its weight, size, manufacturing costs, and reproducibility are all important considerations. The devices must be designed with these restrictions in mind.

Starting with the Apollo missions, in which a cardstock solar compass and a paper range scale was used, several solutions have already been created. In this Challenge, NASA is interested in new or alternative solutions that they haven’t seen yet.

Through the Artemis campaign, NASA is exploring the Moon for scientific discovery, technology advancement, and to learn how to live and work on another world in preparation for human missions to Mars. The Artemis missions plan to land astronauts on the lunar surface to conduct experiments near the lunar south pole including trying to locate and sample water ice. Once located, it will be essential to accurately identify the position so future missions can return and do further investigations.

As one of the largest permanently shadowed regions on the moon, Shackleton Crater is a location that might contain large amounts of trapped water ice. However, navigating to and within the interior of the crater and accurately mapping the crater and its surface presents multiple complications. (See: Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera Images). While parts of the rim of the crater experience almost continual sunlight, the crater’s interior is perpetually shadowed and may contain difficult-to-navigate topography including steep crater walls, cliffs and large boulders. The topography limits access to satellites and makes distant terrain features unusable for navigation. All of these features make reaching the crater floor, navigating, and mapping very difficult.

Additional conditions that complicate this task include the lack of a magnetic field and an extremely low atmospheric pressure (about 3 x 10^-15 bar) which is so low that it can be considered a hard vacuum. Extreme low temperatures (averaging 90 K), and limited sightlines to celestial or orbital bodies also make this task more complicated.

Challenge 1: Low-Tech Orienteering Device

Challenge 2: Navigating and Mapping the Interior of Shackleton Crater