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Robots, Rovers, and Regolith: NASA Brings Exploration to FIRST Robotics 2025

29 April 2025 at 14:33

What does the future of space exploration look like? At the 2025 FIRST Robotics World Championship in Houston, NASA gave student robotics teams and industry leaders a first-hand look—complete with lunar rovers, robotic arms, and real conversations about shaping the next era of discovery.

A crow of people visit NASA exhibits at a venue.

Students and mentors experience NASA exhibits at the 2025 FIRST Robotics World Championship at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston from April 16-18.

NASA/Sumer Loggins

NASA engaged directly with the Artemis Generation, connecting with more than 55,000 students and 75,000 parents and mentors. Through interactive exhibits and discussions, students explored the agency’s robotic technologies, learned about STEM career paths and internships, and gained insight into NASA’s bold vision for the future. Many expressed interest in internships—and dreams of one day contributing to NASA’s missions to explore the unknown for the benefit of all humanity.

Multiple NASA centers participated in the event, including Johnson Space Center in Houston; Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California; Kennedy Space Center in Florida; Langley Research Center in Virginia; Ames Research Center in California; Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans; Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California; Glenn Research Center in Cleveland; Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland; and the Katherine Johnson Independent Verification and Validation Facility in West Virginia. Each brought unique technologies and expertise to the exhibit floor.

Two people sit at a booth with space exploration materials. They are engaging with the public at an event.

FIRST Robotics attendees explore NASA’s exhibit and learn about the agency’s mission during the event.

NASA/Robert Markowitz

Displays highlighted key innovations such as:

Automated Reconfigurable Mission Adaptive Digital Assembly Systems: A modular system of small robots and smart algorithms that can autonomously assemble large-scale structures in space.

Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Exploration: A team of small lunar rovers designed to operate independently, navigating and making decisions together without human input.

Lightweight Surface Manipulation System AutoNomy Capabilities Development for Surface Operations and Construction: A robotic arm system built for lunar construction tasks, developed through NASA’s Early Career Initiative.

Space Exploration Vehicle: A pressurized rover prototype built for human exploration of planetary surfaces, offering attendees a look at how future astronauts may one day travel across the Moon or Mars.

Mars Perseverance Rover: An exhibit detailing the rover’s mission to search for ancient microbial life and collect samples for future return to Earth.

In-Situ Resource Utilization Pilot Excavator: A lunar bulldozer-dump truck hybrid designed to mine and transport regolith, supporting long-term exploration through the Artemis campaign.

Visitors walk through an indoor exhibit featuring a large NASA space exploration vehicle with a mounted spacesuit and American flag.

Visitors view NASA’s Space Exploration Vehicle on display.

NASA/Robert Markowitz

“These demonstrations help students see themselves in NASA’s mission and the next frontier of lunar exploration,” said Johnson Public Affairs Specialist Andrew Knotts. “They can picture their future as part of the team shaping how we live and work in space.”

Since the FIRST Championship relocated to Houston in 2017, NASA has mentored more than 250 robotics teams annually, supporting elementary through high school students. The agency continued that tradition for this year’s event, and celebrated the fusion of science, engineering, and creativity that defines both robotics and space exploration.

A woman in a blue shirt shares information about NASA's missions to a group of adults and kids.

NASA’s booth draws crowds at FIRST Robotics 2025 with hands-on exhibits.

NASA/Robert Markowitz

Local students also had the chance to learn about the Texas High School Aerospace Scholars program, which offers Texas high school juniors hands-on experience designing space missions and solving engineering challenges—an early gateway into NASA’s world of exploration.

As the competition came to a close, students and mentors were already looking ahead to the next season—energized by new ideas, strengthened friendships, and dreams of future missions.

A group of people pose in front of a large structure

NASA volunteers at the FIRST Robotics World Championship on April 17, 2025.

NASA/Robert Markowitz

“It was a true privilege to represent NASA to so many inspiring students, educators, and mentors,” said Jeanette Snyder, aerospace systems engineer for Gateway. “Not too long ago, I was a robotics student myself, and I still use skills I developed through FIRST Robotics in my work as a NASA engineer. Seeing so much excitement around engineering and technology makes me optimistic for the future of space exploration. I can’t wait to see these students become the next generation of NASA engineers and world changers.”

With the enthusiastic support of volunteers, mentors, sponsors, and industry leaders, and NASA’s continued commitment to STEM outreach, the future of exploration is in bold, capable hands.

See the full event come to life in the panorama videos below.

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4 min read

NASA’s Mini Rover Team Is Packed for Lunar Journey

NASA

By:Anthony Greicius

11 February 2025 at 14:38

4 min read

Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)

A team at JPL packed up three small Moon rovers, delivering them in February to the facility where they’ll be attached to a commercial lunar lander in preparation for launch. The rovers are part of a project called CADRE that could pave the way for potential future multirobot missions. NASA/JPL-Caltech

A trio of suitcase-size rovers and their base station have been carefully wrapped up and shipped off to join the lander that will deliver them to the Moon’s surface.

Three small NASA rovers that will explore the lunar surface as a team have been packed up and shipped from the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, marking completion of the first leg of the robots’ journey to the Moon.

The rovers are part of a technology demonstration called CADRE (Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Exploration), which aims to show that a group of robots can collaborate to gather data without receiving direct commands from mission controllers on Earth. They’ll use their cameras and ground-penetrating radars to send back imagery of the lunar surface and subsurface while testing out the novel software that enables them to work together autonomously.

The CADRE rovers will launch to the Moon aboard IM-3, Intuitive Machines’ third lunar delivery, which has a mission window that extends into early 2026, as part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative. Once installed on Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lander, they’ll head to the Reiner Gamma region on the western edge of the Moon’s near side, where the solar-powered, suitcase-size rovers will spend the daylight hours of a lunar day (the equivalent of about 14 days on Earth) carrying out experiments. The success of CADRE could pave the way for potential future missions with teams of autonomous robots supporting astronauts and spreading out to take simultaneous, distributed scientific measurements.

Members of a JPL team working on NASA’s CADRE technology demonstration use temporary red handles to move one of the project’s small Moon rovers to prepare it for transport to Intuitive Machines’ Houston facility, where it will be attached to the company’s third lunar lander.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Construction of the CADRE hardware — along with a battery of rigorous tests to prove readiness for the journey through space — was completed in February 2024.

To get prepared for shipment to Intuitive Machines’ Houston facility, each rover was attached to its deployer system, which will lower it via tether from the lander onto the dusty lunar surface. Engineers flipped each rover-deployer pair over and attached it to an aluminum plate for safe transit. The rovers were then sealed in protective metal-frame enclosures that were fitted snuggly into metal shipping containers and loaded onto a truck. The hardware arrived safely on Sunday, Feb. 9.

“Our small team worked incredibly hard constructing these robots and putting them to the test, and we have been eagerly waiting for the moment where we finally see them on their way,” said Coleman Richdale, the team’s assembly, test, and launch operations lead at JPL. “We are all genuinely thrilled to be taking this next step in our journey to the Moon, and we can’t wait to see the lunar surface through CADRE’s eyes.”

The rovers, the base station, and a camera system that will monitor CADRE experiments on the Moon will be integrated with the lander — as will several other NASA payloads — in preparation for the launch of the IM-3 mission.

More About CADRE

A division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, JPL manages CADRE for the Game Changing Development program within NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. The technology demonstration was selected under the agency’s Lunar Surface Innovation Initiative, which was established to expedite the development of technologies for sustained presence on the lunar surface. NASA’s Science Mission Directorate manages the CLPS initiative. The agency’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland and its Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California, both supported the project. Motiv Space Systems designed and built key hardware elements at the company’s Pasadena facility. Clemson University in South Carolina contributed research in support of the project.

For more about CADRE, go to:

https://go.nasa.gov/cadre