Kennedy Space Center Director Janet Petro, second from right, watches onscreen as robotic miners dig in the mining arena during NASA’s LUNABOTICS competition on May 23, 2022, at the Center for Space Education near the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida. Second from left is Thad Altman, president and CEO of The Astronauts Memorial Foundation. More than 35 teams from around the U.S. have designed and built remote-controlled robots for the mining competition. Teams use their autonomous or remote-controlled robots to maneuver and dig in a supersized sandbox filled with rocks and simulated lunar soil, or regolith. The objective of the challenge is to see which team’s robot can collect and deposit the most rocky regolith within a specified amount of time.

Kennedy Space Center Director Janet Petro, in the center, visits with students from the United States Military Academy (West Point), during NASA’s LUNABOTICS competition on May 23, 2022, at the Center for Space Education near the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida, on May 23, 2022. The students are preparing their robotic miner for its turn to dig in the mining arena. More than 35 teams from around the U.S. have designed and built remote-controlled robots for the mining competition. Teams use their autonomous or remote-controlled robots to maneuver and dig in a supersized sandbox filled with rocks and simulated lunar soil, or regolith. The objective of the challenge is to see which team’s robot can collect and deposit the most rocky regolith within a specified amount of time.