[meteorite-list] Be an Asteroid Hunter in NASA's First Asteroid Grand Challenge Contest Series

[Ron Baalke]

March 10, 2014
     
RELEASE 14-071
     
Be an Asteroid Hunter in NASA's First Asteroid Grand Challenge Contest Series

NASA's Asteroid Data Hunter contest series will offer $35,000 in awards  
over the next six months to citizen scientists who develop improved  
algorithms that can be used to identify asteroids.

This contest series is being conducted in partnership with Planetary  
Resources Inc. of Bellevue, Wash. The first contest in the series will kick  
off on March 17. Prior to the kick off, competitors can create an account on  
the contest series website and learn more about the rules and different  
phases of the contest series by going to:

http://bit.ly/AsteroidHunters 

Managed by the NASA Tournament Lab, the entire contest series runs through  
August and is the first contest series contributing to the agency's  
Asteroid Grand Challenge.

"For the past three years, NASA has been learning and advancing the ability  
to leverage distributed algorithm and coding skills through the NASA  
Tournament Lab to solve tough problems," said Jason Crusan, NASA Tournament  
Lab director. "We are now applying our experience with algorithm contests to  
helping protect the planet from asteroid threats through image analysis."

The Asteroid Data Hunter contest series challenges participants to develop  
significantly improved algorithms to identify asteroids in images captured by  
ground-based telescopes. The winning solution must increase the detection  
sensitivity, minimize the number of false positives, ignore imperfections in  
the data, and run effectively on all computer systems.

"Protecting the planet from the threat of asteroid impact means first  
knowing where they are," said Jenn Gustetic, Prizes and Challenges Program  
executive. "By opening up the search for asteroids, we are harnessing the  
potential of innovators and makers and citizen scientists everywhere to help  
solve this global challenge."

Gustetic and Jason Kessler, Grand Challenges Program executive, will host a  
panel March 10 at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas titled  
"Are We Smarter than the Dinosaurs?" to talk about how open innovation  
can meaningfully engage people in discussions on and research into space  
exploration and help us solve problems of global importance. They will  
provide an outline of the Asteroid Data Hunter contest series and other  
efforts to detect asteroid threats, as well as ideas for mitigating these  
threats.

"Current asteroid detection initiatives are only tracking one percent of  
the estimated objects that orbit the Sun. We are excited to partner with NASA  
in this contest to help increase the quantity and knowledge about asteroids  
that are potential threats, human destinations, or resource rich." said  
Chris Lewicki, President and Chief Engineer of the asteroid mining company  
Planetary Resources, Inc. "Applying distributed algorithm and coding skills  
to the extensive NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey data set will yield  
important insights into the state of the art in detecting asteroids."

Through NASA's asteroid initiative, the agency seeks to enhance its ongoing  
work in the identification and characterization of near-Earth objects for  
further scientific investigation. This work includes locating potentially  
hazardous asteroids and identifying those viable for redirection to a stable  
lunar orbit for future exploration by astronauts. The Asteroid Grand  
Challenge, one part of the asteroid initiative, expands the agency's efforts  
beyond traditional boundaries and encourages partnerships and collaboration  
with a variety of organizations.

The algorithm contests are managed and executed by NASA's Center of  
Excellence for Collaborative Innovation (CoECI). CoECI was established at the  
request of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to advance  
NASA open innovation efforts and extend that expertise to other federal  
agencies. CoECI uses the NASA Tournament Lab (NTL) for its advanced  
algorithmic and software development contests. Through its contract with  
Harvard Business School in association with Harvard's Institute of  
Quantitative Social Science, NTL uses the topcoder platform to enable a  
community of more than 600,000 designers, developers and data scientists to  
create the most innovative, efficient and optimized solutions for specific,  
real-world challenges faced by NASA.

For more information on NASA's Center of Excellence for Collaborative  
Innovation, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/coeci 

For more information on Planetary Resources, Inc., visit:

http://www.planetaryresources.com 

For more information on NASA's asteroid initiative, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/asteroidinitiative 

-end-

Sarah Ramsey
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1694
sarah.ramsey at nasa.gov