NASA's Recycling in Space Challenge

Deadline: 2019-01-16
Award: $15,000
Open to: Everyone*

NASA seeks proposals for technologies and systems that will, in a microgravity environment, store & transfer logistical mission waste to a thermal processing unit for decomposition.

On Earth, recycling technologies can utilize gravity to move waste when converting it to new materials or constituent molecules. In a microgravity environment, however, technology is the only way to transfer the waste for processing.

The aim of this Challenge is to identify receptacle and feeder mechanisms suitable for a microgravity environment that can deliver mission waste for decomposition.

While NASA is primarily interested in comprehensive systems that can jointly address the need for a receptacle and transfer mechanism, they are also interested in approaches that can sufficiently solve only one component.