[Federal Register Volume 83, Number 171 (Tuesday, September 4, 2018)]
[Notices]
[Pages 44911-44913]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2018-18925]


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NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION

[18-066]


Notice of Centennial Challenges CO2 Conversion Challenge Phase 1

AGENCY: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

ACTION: Notice of Centennial Challenges CO2 Conversion 
Challenge Phase 1.

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SUMMARY: This notice is issued in accordance with the NASA Prize 
Authority. Phase 1 of the CO2 Conversion Challenge is open, 
and teams that wish to compete may now register. Centennial Challenges 
is a program of prize competitions to stimulate innovation in 
technologies of interest and value to NASA and the nation. 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. NASA is providing the prize 
purse, and NASA Centennial Challenges will be managing the Challenge 
with support from Common Pool.

DATES: Challenge registration for Phase 1 opens August 30, 2018, and 
will remain open until 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time on January 24, 2019.
    Other important dates:

February 28, 2019 Phase 1 Submission Deadline--no further requests for 
review will be accepted after this date

ADDRESSES: Phase 1 of the CO2 Conversion Challenge will be 
executed at the participants' facility or lab.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: To register for or get additional 
information regarding the CO2 Conversion Challenge, please 
visit: www.co2conversionchallenge.org.
    For general information on the NASA Centennial Challenges Program 
please visit: http://www.nasa.gov/challenges. General questions and 
comments regarding the program should be addressed to Monsi Roman, 
Centennial Challenges Program, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center 
Huntsville, AL 35812. Email address: [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Summary

    Future planetary habitats on Mars will require a high degree of 
self-sufficiency. This requires a concerted effort to both effectively 
recycle supplies brought from Earth and use local resources such as 
CO2, water and regolith to manufacture mission-relevant 
products. Human life support and habitation systems will treat 
wastewater to make drinking water, recover oxygen from CO2, 
convert solid wastes to useable products, grow food, and specially 
design equipment and packaging to allow reuse in alternate forms. In 
addition, In-situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) techniques will use 
available local materials to generate substantial quantities of 
products to supply life support needs, propellants and building 
materials, and support other In-Space Manufacturing (ISM) activities.
    Many of these required mission products such as food, nutrients, 
medicines, plastics, fuels, and adhesives are organic, and are 
comprised mostly of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen molecules. 
These molecules are readily available within the Martian atmosphere 
(CO2, N2) and surface water (H2O), and 
could be used as the feedstock to produce an array of desired products. 
While some products will be most efficiently made using physicochemical 
methods or photosynthetic organisms such as plants and algae, many 
products may best be produced using heterotrophic (organic substrate 
utilizing) microbial production systems. Terrestrially, commercial 
heterotrophic bioreactor systems utilize fast growing microbes combined 
with high concentrations of readily metabolized organic substrates, 
such as sugars, to enable very rapid rates of bio-product generation.
    The type of organic substrate used strongly affects the efficiency 
of the microbial system. For example, while an organism may be able to 
use simple organic compounds such as formate (1- carbon) and acetate 
(2-carbon), these ``low-energy'' substrates will typically result in 
poor growth. In order to maximize the rate of growth and reduce system 
size and mass, organic substrates that are rich in energy and carbon, 
such as sugars, are needed. Sugars such as D-Glucose, a six-carbon 
sugar that is used by a wide variety of model heterotrophic microbes, 
is typically the preferred organic substrate for commercial terrestrial 
microbial production systems and experimentation. There are a wide 
range of other compounds, such as less complex sugars and glycerol that 
could also support relatively rapid rates of growth.
    To effectively employ microbial bio-manufacturing platforms on 
planetary bodies such as Mars, it is vital that the carbon substrates 
be made on-site using local materials. However, generating complex 
compounds like glucose on Mars presents an array of challenges. While 
sugar-based substrates are inexpensively made in bulk on Earth from 
plant biomass, this approach is currently not feasible in space. 
Alternatively, current physicochemical processes such as photo/
electrochemical and thermal catalytic systems are able to make smaller 
organic compounds such as methane, formate, acetate and some alcohols 
from CO2; however, these systems have not been developed to 
make more complex organic molecules, such as sugars, primarily because 
of difficult technical challenges combined with the low cost of 
obtaining sugars from alternate methods on Earth. Novel research and 
development is required to create the physicochemical systems required 
to directly make more complex molecules from CO2 in space 
environments. It is hoped that advancements in the generation of 
suitable microbial substrates will spur interest in making complex 
organic compounds from CO2 that could also serve as 
feedstock molecules in traditional terrestrial chemical synthesis and 
manufacturing operations.
    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.

I. Prize Amounts

    Phase 1 of the CO2 Conversion Challenge total prize 
purse is up to $250,000 (two-hundred fifty thousand dollars) to be 
awarded to up to five (5) top teams. Up to five (5) top teams will be 
selected based on judges' scoring and awarded $50,000 (fifty thousand 
dollars) each.

II. Eligibility To Participate and Win Prize Money

    NASA welcomes applications from individuals, teams, and 
organization or entities that have a recognized legal existence and 
structure under applicable law (State, Federal or Country) and that are 
in good standing in the jurisdiction under which they are organized 
with the following restrictions:
    1. Individuals must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents of the 
United States and must be 18 years of age or older.
    2. Organizations must be an entity incorporated in and maintaining 
a primary place of business in the United States.
    3. Teams must be comprised of otherwise eligible individuals or

[[Page 44913]]

organizations, and led by an otherwise eligible individual or 
organization.
    4. Teams must conduct their demonstration work in facilities based 
in the United States, to include AK, HI and U.S. territories.
    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. U.S. government 
employees participating as individuals, or who submit applications on 
behalf of an otherwise eligible organization, will be responsible for 
ensuring that their participation in the Competition is permitted by 
the rules and regulations relevant to their position and that they have 
obtained any authorization that may be required by virtue of their 
government position. Failure to do so may result in the 
disqualification of them individually or of the entity which they 
represent or in which they are involved.
    Foreign citizens may only participate through an eligible U.S. 
entity as:
    i. An employee of such entity,
    ii. A full-time student of such entity, if the entity is a 
university or other accredited institution of higher learning,
    iii. An owner of such entity, so long as foreign citizens own less 
than 50% of the interests in the entity, OR
    iv. A contractor under written contract to such entity.
    No Team Member shall be a citizen of a country on the NASA Export 
Control Program list of designated countries in Category II, Countries 
determined by the Department of State to support terrorism. The current 
list of designated countries can be found at http://oiir.hq.nasa.gov/nasaecp/. As of July 12, 2018, only 4 countries are in category II 
(Iran, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria). Please check the link for latest 
updates.
    A team-designated team lead shall be responsible for the actions of 
and compliance with the rules, including prize eligibility rules, by 
all members of his or her team.
    The eligibility requirements can also be found on the official 
challenge site: www.co2conversionchallenge.org.

III. Intellectual Property

    Each application should reflect the anticipated ownership, use, and 
licensing of any intellectual property. The Team represents and 
warrants that the Entry is an original work created solely by the Team, 
that the Team own all Intellectual Property in and to the Entry, and 
that no other party has any right, title, claim or interest in the 
Entry, except as expressly identified by the Team to NASA in writing in 
the application. NASA claims no right, title, or interest to any such 
intellectual property solely as a consequence of the Team's 
participation in the competition, including the winning of a prize. 
NASA reserves the right to share any submissions received with its 
civil servants and contractors, and reserves the right to approach 
individual participants about any future opportunities at the 
conclusion of the competition.

IV. Official Rules

    The complete official rules for Phase 1 of the CO2 
Conversion Challenge can be found at: www.co2conversionchallenge.org.

Cheryl Parker,
NASA Federal Register Liaison Officer.
[FR Doc. 2018-18925 Filed 8-31-18; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 7510-13-P