sp-2020-08-776-ksc_nasa_minds_web_banner_graphic.png NASA MINDS is a hands-on, design-and-build collegiate learning experience. Participating teams will independently select a technology that is relevant to NASA's Artemis missions, allowing students to focus on technologies that interest and inspire them most. Credits: NASA

NASA's Minority University Research and Education Project (MUREP) is seeking teams from minority serving institutions (MSIs) to participate in the Minority Innovative New Designs for Space (MINDS) challenge.

Through MINDS, students’ skills, creativity, and innovation are challenged as they are asked to design and build technologies needed for Artemis missions, such as propulsion, dust mitigation, solar arrays, and swarming robotics.

Applications and proposals are being accepted until 3 p.m. EDT on Oct. 7.

NASA MINDS is not a competition but rather a hands-on design-and-build collegiate learning experience. Participating teams will independently select a technology that is relevant to NASA's Artemis missions, allowing students to focus on technologies that interest and inspire them most. The only constraint is the technology and the goals of each project must support a need required for NASA’s lunar missions.

With the Artemis program, NASA will land the first woman and next man on the Moon by 2024, using innovative technologies to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before. 

“The Artemis program’s success will hinge on the creation of new technologies, and students are often the most outside-the-box thinkers of our time,” said Theresa Martinez, activity manager for NASA MINDS. “We are looking to students to be inspired, to uncover new ideas, and to ultimately bring those ideas to life.”

Artemis presents the potential to inspire the next generation of technicians, researchers, engineers, and scientists. Most importantly, involving college and university students in the specific technologies that are both relevant to and needed by Artemis provides pathways for these students to enter the NASA and aerospace workforce. In addition, NASA MINDS believes that the work undertaken by students has the potential to uncover unique ideas, accelerate innovation, and aid in technological breakthroughs.

About MUREP

The NASA MUREP, administered through NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement, provides financial assistance via competitive awards to MSIs. These opportunities are available to Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic Serving Institutions, Asian-American and Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian-Serving Institutions, Tribal Colleges and Universities, Native American-Serving Nontribal Institutions, and Predominately Black Institutions. In turn, these schools actively recruit and retain underrepresented and underserved students, including women and persons with disabilities, into STEM fields.

For more information, visit:

www.nasa.gov/murep/nasaminds
 

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Press Contacts

Heather L. Scott
Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
321-867-1007
heather.l.scott@nasa.gov

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