HUNTSVILLE AL - NASA is updating its annual"moonbuggy" race in Huntsville. NASA has staged the Great Moonbuggy
Race for the last two decades. Student teams from all over the country and some
foreign countries build rigs to race around a simulated lunar surface.
The race is being revamped, and next year it will become the"NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge."
NASA is introducing a new engineering design challenge that
will focus on NASA's current plans to explore planets, moons, asteroids and
comets -- all members of the solar system family. The new NASA Human
Exploration Rover Challenge (formerly NASA Great Moonbuggy Race) will be held
April 10-12, 2014, at the U. S. Space & Rocket Center.
The challenge will focus on designing, constructing and testing technologies for mobility devices to perform in these different environments, and it will provide valuable experiences that engage students in the technologies and concepts that will be needed in future exploration missions.
Students will again build vehicles, but the course will be a simulated field of asteroid debris with small boulders, a dry stream bed, pebbles and erosion ruts.
NASA says the new version of the race looks ahead to the next generation of spaceflight and the scientists needed to get people into deep space.
The challenge will be held in April at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville. View Press Release . Registration is OPEN! - NASA