Res Communis

NASA Announces Three New Centennial Challenges

by Sara M. Langston with the blog faculty

Source: SpaceRef.com

WASHINGTON — NASA announced three new Centennial Challenges Tuesday, with an overall prize purse of $5 million. NASA’s Centennial Challenges are prize competitions for technological achievements by independent teams who work without government funding.

“NASA sponsors prize competitions because the agency believes student teams, private companies of all sizes and citizen-inventors can provide creative solutions to problems of interest to NASA and the nation,” said Bobby Braun, the agency’s chief technologist. “Prize competitions are a proven way to foster technological competitiveness, new industries and innovation across America.”

The Nano-Satellite Launch Challenge is to place a small satellite into Earth orbit, twice in one week, with a prize of $2 million. The goals of this challenge are to stimulate innovations in low-cost launch technology and encourage creation of commercial nano-satellite delivery services…more