Here’s a message from the Miles Space Project, which has won $50k in prize money so far in NASA’s CubeQuest Challenge competition to design, build, and fly small satellites “capable of advanced operations near and beyond the moon”.

Team Miles brings home another top finish
in the NASA CubeQuest Challenge

Tampa, FL – March 17, 2016. Today, NASA announced that Team Miles, the leading contestant in the NASA CubeQuest Challenge, has once again secured a top tier position in Ground Tournament 2. As the 1st place winner of Ground Tournament 1, Team Miles was already eligible to secure a place on the SLS Exploratory Mission Launch scheduled for 2018. With this second win, they have now accumulated $50,000 in prize money.

Wes Faler, team lead for Miles stated,

“I’m very proud of my team. I know we still have a long, hard road ahead of us. I’ve seen the competition and we know how qualified they are. We’ll continue to forge ahead and not take anything for granted. Our team has a daring mission plan and I’m thrilled that NASA has recognized our capabilities with two consecutive ground tournament victories.”

According to Alex Wingeier, Digital Janitor for Team Miles,

“I believe the win came as a result of the many structural improvements based on feedback from the NASA Safety Team as well as the continued successful testing and implementation of the ConstantQ thrusters provided by Fluid & Reason, Inc. and the R.A.C.P. boards from Yosemite Space.”

Team Miles is the only non-university team to earn a prize in Ground Tournament 2. As a team of citizen scientists and engineers, they came together initially through Tampa Hackerspace, a community, non-profit workshop located in Tampa, FL. The team soon expanded to include experts in radiation, communications, software development, and project management.

The NASA Cube Quest Challenge is a competition to build space-ready, small satellites capable of advanced communication and propulsion near and beyond the moon. Teams strive for high-speed data communications, navigation, and survival in lunar orbit or deep space, competing for an unprecedented $5.5 million prize purse in NASA’s first ever in-space challenge. Cube Quest is part of NASA’s Centennial Challenges Program which accelerates technology by engaging non-traditional sources in competition.

The Miles spacecraft is a 6U satellite, about the size of a breadbox, that will be capable of navigating to the Moon, establishing Lunar orbit, conducting its mission, and then navigating to a final orbit near Mars. The entire mission will be flown autonomously by a sophisticated onboard computer system and powered by evolutionary plasma thrusters.

In addition to the $50,000 in prize money the team has won so far, their efforts have also been supported by strategic partnerships with Fluid and Reason (http://fluidandreason.com/),  Yosemite Space (http://yosemitespace.com/), The DRI (http://thedri.com/), Piedmont Precision Aeroculture (http://ppaeroculture.com/), Brainloop (http://www.brainloop.com/), Basecamp (https://basecamp.com/), Thermal Management Technologies (http://tmtsdl.com/), and Sabalcore (http://www.sabalcore.com/).