CineSpace

CineSpace is a collaboration between NASA and Houston Cinema Arts Society (HCAS) that offers filmmakers around the world a chance to share their works inspired by, and using, actual NASA imagery through “CineSpace”, a short film competition. Winners are announced and screen along with all finalists at the annual Houston Cinema Arts Festival which is held in November. Previous winners have gone on to screen across the nation and in space on the I.S.S.

This Competition is offered and open only to persons who are at least 18 years of age at the time of entry. Parents and guardians of filmmakers younger than 18 can submit on their behalf.

The following persons are not eligible to win prizes: employees of NASA, Houston Cinema Arts Society (HCAS) and their Board, employees of vendors to NASA or HCAS that have contracted to provide services to or in connection with the Competition, members of the Selection Committee, the Competition judges, and members of their households.

By entering, you agree to these Rules and warrant that you are eligible to enter the Competition.

Submissions are due by September 8, 2023. Entries will be judged in September. Finalists will be notified on or before October 31, 2023. Award Winners will be announced during the Houston Cinema and Arts Festival at the CineSpace premiere and award ceremony.

For more info, go to https://www.cinespace.org/guidelines-rules

Lunabotics

Since 2010, NASA’s Lunabotics competition has provided college students from around the country an opportunity to engage with the NASA Systems Engineering process by designing and building robotic Lunar excavators capable of mining regolith and icy regolith simulants. For more than a decade, NASA has been able to gather valuable data about necessary excavation hardware and surface locomotion processes that can be implemented as the agency prepares to return to the Moon through the Artemis program.

It is time to offer a new design / build event that reflects the upcoming challenges astronauts and robots will face when living and working on the Lunar surface. Throughout the 2023 competition cycle, Lunabotics will undergo a transition to a new Artemis Student Challenge to be announced in the summer of 2023.

This new challenge will provide NASA valuable information for the design of robots and innovative construction techniques for Lunar and Martian environments. Major gaps exist between the functional capabilities and the technologies necessary for Lunar surface construction, and the requirements needed to narrow these gaps are in development and will support the long-term
presence on the Moon, also known as “Infrastructure to Stay”. Once identified, NASA will seek input from American academia to find new and innovative ways to apply existing or develop new technologies to meet Artemis Program requirements.
In preparation for this new phase, Lunabotics 2023 will be a virtual challenge to allow NASA to evaluate and re-formulate the Lunabotics competition to be relevant to the Artemis lunar program future needs. The on-site competition at the Kennedy Space Center may resume in 2024 with a new format. 

Visit the Lunabotics page  for more details and to obtain the Lunabotics Guidebook once it is released on August 9, 2023.  Proposals will be due September 13, 2023 on the NASA STEM Gateway site.

2023 NASA SUITS Challenge

NASA SUITS (Spacesuit User Interface Technologies for Students) challenges students to design and create spacesuit information displays within augmented reality (AR) environments. As NASA pursues Artemis – landing American astronauts on the Moon, the agency will accelerate investing in surface architecture and technology development. For exploration, it is essential that crewmembers on spacewalks are equipped with the appropriate human-autonomy enabling technologies necessary for the elevated demands of lunar surface exploration and extreme terrestrial access. The SUITS 2023 Challenges target key aspects of the Artemis mission. Please direct all questions regarding this opportunity to NASA-SUITS@mail.nasa.gov.

Each prospective onsite team member must be enrolled as an undergraduate or graduate student at an accredited U.S. institution of higher learning (community college, military academy, technical college, or university) or faculty member at the time the proposal is submitted.

• Team members must be 18 or older before arrival in Houston.
• To attend onsite testing activities, participants MUST be U.S. Citizens or Legal Permanent Residents.
• All participants MUST attend the Orientation and Virtual Design Review.
• Primary team members may only participate with one team in the same competition.
• Student experiments must be organized, designed, and operated by student team members alone.
• Each team must be accompanied by an adult age 21 or older serving as the faculty advisor.
• Enrollment verification may be requested for team members.
• Interns involved in the design of a SUITS challenge may not participate as a member of a team in that same cycle of the SUITS challenge, however, they may serve as a team advisor.
• Support team members may be comprised of university students of any level, faculty members, professional consultants, etc.

2024 SUITS Challenge will be released September 7, 2023.

For info, go to https://microgravityuniversity.jsc.nasa.gov/nasasuits

Space Tech Challenge

The Space Tech Challenge is a competition hosted by HeroX (an online community) where contestants (or a team of contestants) submit a proposal describing their concept for addressing the challenges of long-term lunar habitation and their projected results. Submissions opened on August 15 and close on October 2. Finalists will move forward and present their proposal on October 13, and the winners will be announced on November 17. Winners receive a cash prize (5k for first, 3k for second, and 2k for third). The contest is open to all US Citizens who are not employees of JSEG or NASA and it will award cash prizes to the top three entries.  Non-citizens can enter, but they are not eligible for any of the cash awards.  If you would like more information, please feel free to visit the website or contact Ms. Sarah Moore at sarah.a.moore@nasa.gov

Submissions opened on August 15 and close on October 2. More info here: https://www.herox.com/LunarLife2

RockOn & RockSat

RockOn! is a hands-on workshop teaching participants how to create a sounding rocket experiment from scratch over a 5 day period and then launching it into space on the 6th day of the workshop.  This is a team experience and takes place at Wallops.  The 2024 RockOn application will open in November 2023.

For more details click here