Coming to a desert near you in May 2027.
The University Rover Challenge is an international robotics competition created by the Mars Society, bringing together university students from all over the world to design, build and develop prototype Mars rovers to compete in a series of simulated missions. The competition is held annually at the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) in the Utah desert of the United States.
Teams are judged across five points: the four competition missions and the System Acceptance Review (SAR) submitted by the team prior to competition.
System Acceptance Review
The System Acceptance Review (SAR) is a complete overview of the rover's systems, their functions, the logic behind their creation, and the team's plans for solving the competition challenges. It is a judged, competitive delivery submitted in February, with the 36 highest ranked teams being invited to compete at MDRS in May.
Science Mission
The Science Mission's objective is for the team to select a collection site on the field, collect a soil sample and perform a scientific analysis of their sample to find signs of life with the rover's onboard equipment, and save a sample cache for laboratory analysis. Teams must select their sites of interest through information and data provided by their rover.
Delivery Mission
The Delivery Mission consists of a series of tasks for assisting a crew of astronauts on the field. These include opening and closing tool cases, delivering objects and storage containers to different locations at the site, testing the rover's navigation (GNSS) systems and overall mechanical robustness.
Equipment Servicing Mission
Rovers will complete a series of dexterous tasks on a mock lander during the Equipment Servicing Mission. These include picking up a sample cache and storing it in a container, transporting said container to the lander and loading the cache on it, and opening a panel to type a code on a keyboard mounted on the lander.
Autonomous Navigation Mission
The Autonomous Navigation Mission requires rovers to autonomously navigate to a series of GNSS coordinates on the field, posts marked with AR tags and objects placed on the ground. The rover's onboard vision system will need to correctly identify these objects. This mission begins shortly after the Equipment Servicing Mission is completed.