New NASA Centennial Challenges Announcement
Fed Register Notice# 18-066
NASA CO₂ Conversion Challenge

In accordance with the NASA Prize Authority, the NASA Centennial Challenges program has released Phase 1 of the CO₂ Conversion Challenge. Interested teams that wish to compete may now register on the official Challenge site at www.co2conversionchallenge.org.

NASA Centennial Challenges is a program of prize competitions to stimulate innovation in technologies of interest and value to NASA and the nation. NASA is providing the prize purse, and NASA Centennial Challenges will be managing the Challenge with support from Common Pool.

The CO₂ Conversion Challenge is devoted to fostering the development of CO₂ conversion systems that can effectively produce singular or multiple molecular compounds identified as desired microbial manufacturing ingredients and/or that provide a significant advancement of physicochemical CO₂ conversion for the production of useful molecules. NASA envisions this competition having two phases with a total prize purse of up to $1 million. Phase 1 (the current phase) is the Concept Phase with a prize purse of up to $250,000 to demonstrate capabilities to develop technologies to manufacture “food” for microbial bioreactors from CO₂ and hydrogen molecules, with the ultimate goal of producing glucose. The initiation of Phase 2, a Demonstration Challenge with a prize purse of up to $750,000, is contingent on the emergence of promising submissions in Phase 1 that demonstrate a viable approach to achieve the Challenge goals. The official rules for Phase 2 will be released prior to the opening of Phase 2.

Official documentation related to this Challenge can be found at www.co2conversionchallenge.org.

NASA welcomes applications from individuals, teams, and organization or entities that meet the eligibility requirements as stated in the Official Rules. U.S. government employees may enter the competition, or be members of prize-eligible teams, so long as they are not acting within the scope of their Federal employment, and they rely on no facilities, access, personnel, knowledge or other resources that are available to them as a result of their employment except for those resources available to all other participants on an equal basis. Refer to the Official Challenge Rules for a complete set of eligibility requirements.

Interested teams should submit their registration by 5:00pm Central Time on January 24, 2019. Submissions must be received by 5:00pm Central Time on February 28, 2019. No further requests for review will be accepted after this date.

This email is being sent on behalf of the Centennial Challenges program and is intended as an informational announcement to the science and research communities.

Thank you for your continued interest in NASA. Please refer to the Challenge Website for contact information.