"Katherine Rauscher of Michigan Technological University prepared her team's prototype lunar robot for its turn during the competition."
The finals for NASA's 2026 Lunabotics Challenge took place on Tuesday, May 19, 2026, at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida.
Participants
Forty-seven teams from around the United States designed and built remote-controlled robots capable of traversing challenging lunar terrain while constructing regolith-based berm under conditions similar to those NASA will face during Artemis missions.
Background
The Lunabotics Challenge invites students from higher education institutions to apply NASA's Systems Engineering principles to design and build a prototype off-world construction robot. Participants develop a robot capable of performing construction operations supporting future space exploration objectives.
Image credit: NASA/Ben Smegelsky