ANNOUNCING THE 2027 HUMAN LANDER CHALLENGE!

2027 CHALLENGE THEME: LUNAR COMMUNICATIONS

The Human Lander Challenge (HuLC) is an initiative supporting NASA’s efforts to explore innovative solutions for a variety of known technology development areas for human landing systems (HLS). As human exploration pushes beyond low Earth orbit toward sustained lunar presence missions and future missions to Mars, the role of lunar communications becomes increasingly vital. Designing for deep space is challenging due to mission duration, criticality, and extreme environmental conditions. Reliable lunar communications infrastructure is one area that must be tackled to ensure the safe and effective operation of human and non-human missions on the Moon. NASA invites collegiate student teams to explore innovations and potential solutions to lunar communications challenges and constraints. While the focus of the 2027 HuLC Competition is lunar and cislunar communications, the Moon serves as a proving ground for future human exploration of Mars.

Up to 12 teams will be selected to receive a $9,000 prize and advance to Phase 2, which includes a final design review at the HuLC Forum in Huntsville, Alabama in June 2027. Teams selected to advance to Phase 2 are responsible for developing a technical paper and poster and giving an in-person presentation to a panel of NASA and industry subject matter experts during the HuLC Forum. The overall top three placing teams will share a total prize purse of $18,000.

The 2027 HuLC competition invites teams to develop innovative, systems-level solutions to understand, establish, and optimize lunar communications systems for landers and surface operations that can be implemented within 3-5 years. Potential solutions areas include, but are not limited to, the following subtopics:

Hardware

Space-Rated Wireless Networks and Electronics: Develop resilient wireless networking and communications technologies that enable seamless connectivity among astronauts, rovers, habitats, and landers in the harsh lunar environment.
Antenna Signal Propagation, Modeling, and Environmental Mitigation: Design antenna systems and predictive models that improve communication reliability in the lunar environment by overcoming challenges posed by terrain, regolith, dust, and thermal extremes.

Software

Data Efficiency and Link Optimization: Develop next-generation data compression, modulation, and communications architectures that maximize bandwidth efficiency, prioritize mission-critical information, and improve the reliability of Earth-Moon communications.
Network Management and Scheduling: Design an intelligent network management solution that dynamically allocates limited ground station antennas and spacecraft radios, prioritizes mission-critical and emergency traffic, and efficiently supports dozens of cislunar users.

Architecture

Surface Comm System Architecture: Design a scalable lunar surface communications network that uses relay nodes, redundant communication paths, and resilient mission operations capable of supporting an expanding lunar presence.
Orbital Comm System Architecture: Design a scalable lunar relay satellite architecture that provides continuous or near-continuous communications coverage, connects lunar surface assets with Earth, and integrates orbital and surface networks into a resilient communications system that minimizes single points of failure.

NASA's Human Lander Challenge

NASA’s Human Lander Challenge (HuLC) is an initiative supporting its Human Spaceflight Mission Directorate’s (HSMD’s) efforts to explore innovative solutions for a variety of known Human Landing System (HLS) challenge areas. Through this competition, college students contribute to the advancement of HLS technologies, concepts, and approaches. Improvements in these technology areas have the potential to revolutionize NASA’s approach to space exploration, and contributions from the academic community are a valuable part of the journey to discovery.