The winners for the JPL-led “Honey, I Shrunk the NASA Payload” challenge have been announced, and the miniature robotic designs could help the agency explore the Moon.

PASADENA, Calif. (NASA PR) — NASA’s next giant leap may be aided by tiny lunar robots. These miniature robots would help scout the lunar surface, collecting key information about the Moon, its resources, and the environment. Such data would be helpful for the agency’s future lunar endeavors and NASA’s Artemis  program.

VANCOUVER, BC, April 9, 2020 (HeroX PR) — HeroX, the leading crowdsourcing platform that solves global problems, today launched the crowdsourcing competition “Honey I Shrunk the NASA Payload” on behalf of theNASA Tournament Lab (NTL) and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The challenge calls on the global community of solvers to develop miniature payloads that could be sent to the moon in the next several years to fill strategic lunar knowledge gaps. 

PASADENA, Calif. (NASA PR) — Future exploration of the Moon and beyond will require tools of all shapes and sizes – from sweeping orbiters to the tiniest of rovers. In addition to current planned scientific rovers like the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover,  or  VIPER, NASA could one day send even smaller rovers to help scout the Moon’s surface.

These tiny robots would provide mission flexibility and collect key information about the lunar surface, its resources and the environment. The data collected by these rovers would be helpful for future lunar endeavors and NASA’s Artemis program.