{
  "id": 14332590,
  "title": "NASA gives you chance to win $150,000: What is ‘Lunar Grounding Challenge’ and how can you participate?",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/14/nasa-gives-you-chance-to-win-150-000-what-is-lunar-grounding",
  "topic": "science",
  "section": "Science",
  "published": "2026-10-14T00:43:05.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Live Mint",
    "slug": "live-mint",
    "url": "https://www.livemint.com/news/us-news/nasa-gives-you-chance-to-win-150-000-what-is-lunar-grounding-challenge-and-how-can-you-participate-11791884650098.html"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": null,
  "summary": "NASA has launched the Lunar Grounding Challenge, a crowdsourced initiative seeking innovative engineering ideas to address the problem of static electricity buildup on the Moon. The space agency is offering up to $150,000 in prizes to whoever wins the challenge. The issue is particularly concerning for astronauts landing at the lunar South Pole in 2028, as they could become a walking, high-voltage capacitor due to tribocharging and plasma charging from the lunar surface. NASA aims to find a solution to prevent electrostatic discharge, which could damage spacesuits, spark fires in the oxygen atmosphere of a spacecraft, or create electrical shocks for the crew. The challenge asks for designs that can help an astronaut avoid becoming a walking, high-voltage capacitor, with constraints on mass, volume, and power impacts, and operability in the harsh lunar environment.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}