Competition Website: NASA’s BIG Idea Challenge

Lead: Abhinav Agarwal, Thomas Dhome-Casanova, Benjamin Benjadol

Duration: Fall 2020 to Spring 2021

Description: The 2021 NASA BIG Idea Challenge, one of NASA and the National Institute of Aerospace’s major annual design competitions, harnesses student innovation to develop technologies for upcoming NASA missions. As America puts the first woman and next man on the Moon in 2024 to lay the groundwork for a more permanent human presence there, dust mitigation technologies are in great demand. Lunar dust can cause electrical shortages in spacesuits, rovers, and landers, cause respiratory problems to astronauts living in a Moon habitat, make it difficult for a spacecraft landing on the moon to see its target, and other issues. A successful proposal for a novel lunar dust mitigation technology in the fall can win our BIG Idea Challenge team between $50,000 and $180,000 to begin building a prototype spring semester. If satisfactory progress is made with construction of the prototype, this stage will culminate in a design review and presentation at NASA’s Langley Research Center in November 2021.