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Centennial Challenges: Innovation Through Competition

20:38 recording · AUTO · 2 speakers

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Brief overview

NASA's Centennial Challenges pays only for proven results, letting the public solve real space technology problems.

  1. Prizes reward only demonstrated successCompetitors receive no government funding and awards are made only when challenge requirements are met.
  2. Teams keep all their intellectual propertyNASA never takes a team's idea, so winners can patent, publish white papers, win contracts or start companies.
  3. Challenges take a year to designRules, judging rubrics and success criteria are built with subject matter experts before a challenge ever launches.
Executive Summary AI
  • Host Andres Almeida introduces Centennial Challenges, NASA's prize competition program that has awarded more than $24 million to hundreds of academics, startup founders, small business owners and independent inventors across the U.S. and 86 countries.0:07
  • Savannah Bullard, Strategic Communications Lead for the program office at Marshall Space Flight Center, explains that Centennial began with a 2003 congressional amendment to the 1958 Space Act, launched its first challenge in 2005, and has since run 23 competitions awarding more than $23 million.1:46
  • She points to the 3D Printed Habitat Challenge, where team Icon left the competition for commercial success and went on to print the Chapia analog habitats NASA uses today, and to the Vascular Tissue Challenge, where Wake Forest University teams now send work to the International Space Station.4:05
  • Bullard describes what makes the program unusual: competitors get no government funding, awards go only to teams that meet requirements, and NASA never claims any intellectual property, leaving teams free to patent, publish or start companies.6:31
  • Looking ahead, she highlights the $3 million Lunar Recycle Challenge, which awarded $850,000 in phase one this spring and will award up to $2 million when phase two concludes next summer, plus a coming spinoff seeking a complete space food system for a crew of 10 to 15 people for five years.13:43
Key Quote
“We are NASA's flagship in-house competition program. We deal in multi-million dollar competitions, and these are managed and executed entirely through our office.”
— Savannah Bullard2:00
Key Quote
“Rapid prototyping allows our teams to fail fast and approach solutions with an iterative mindset.”
— Savannah Bullard6:26
Key Quote
“The other thing is Centennial and NASA, we never claim intellectual property rights from teams.”
— Savannah Bullard7:15