NASA SEEKS ROBOTICS FROM CLEANTECH OPEN

NASA and The Cleantech Open Partner in Robotics Challenge; Energy innovations stemming from this challenge may be beneficial to broader terrestrial applications, including vehicles and renewable energy generation systems.
September 21, 2011 (Cleantech Open)

"NASA has selected The Cleantech Open of Redwood City, Calif., to manage the agency's Night Rover Challenge that will culminate in a competition in fall 2012. The event is a new Centennial Challenges prize competition seeking revolutionary energy storage technologies for future space robotic rover missions. NASA is offering a prize purse of $1.5 million to challenge winners

"The Night Rover Challenge is to demonstrate solar energy collection and storage systems suitable for rovers to operate through several cycles of daylight and darkness. During daylight, systems can collect photons or thermal energy from the sun. During darkness, the stored energy would be used to move the rover toward a destination and to continue its exploration work…"

click to enlarge

"[Meanwhile, the Northeast Regional Finals event and reception of The Cleantech Open will take place at the Microsoft New England Research and Development (NERD) Center on October 4th, 2011. 35 teams - among the top cleantech entrepreneurs in the Northeast region – will compete for three regional cash and in-kind prizes and the opportunity to compete for the national grand prize of $250,000 in cash and services at the Cleantech Open Global Awards Ceremony in San Jose, California in early November.

"The mission of the Cleantech Open is to find, fund, and foster the big ideas that address today’s most urgent energy, environmental, and economic challenges. Since its inception in 2006, nearly 400 promising teams have availed themselves of the Cleantech Open’s one-of-a-kind hands-on workforce development, nurturing, and funding programs…Alumni have raised over $280M in private capital, 80% remain economically viable today, and more than 2,000 new clean technology jobs have been created at a cost of less than $5,000 per job, far below the cost estimated for job generation under state and federal programs or the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.]"