{"id":322905,"date":"2025-11-26T03:30:43","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T17:30:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/?p=930387"},"modified":"2025-11-26T03:30:43","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T17:30:43","slug":"nasa-crater-detection-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=322905","title":{"rendered":"NASA Crater Detection Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"\" class=\"hds-media hds-module wp-block-image\">\n<div class=\"margin-left-auto margin-right-auto nasa-block-align-inline\">\n<div class=\"hds-media-wrapper margin-left-auto margin-right-auto\">\n<figure class=\"hds-media-inner hds-cover-wrapper hds-media-ratio-cover \"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/image-article\/nasas-lucy-spacecraft-views-moon\/\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1041\" height=\"1285\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/image3_lunarhighlands.png?w=1041\" class=\"attachment-2048x2048 size-2048x2048\" alt=\"A close-up image of the Moon&#039;s surface, which fades from smooth gray at the left, to craggy craters and black shadow at the right.\" style=\"transform: scale(1); transform-origin: 50% 50%; object-position: 50% 50%; object-fit: cover;\" block_context=\"nasa-block\" loading=\"eager\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/image3_lunarhighlands.png 1041w, https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/image3_lunarhighlands.png?resize=243,300 243w, https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/image3_lunarhighlands.png?resize=768,948 768w, https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/image3_lunarhighlands.png?resize=830,1024 830w, https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/image3_lunarhighlands.png?resize=324,400 324w, https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/image3_lunarhighlands.png?resize=486,600 486w, https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/image3_lunarhighlands.png?resize=729,900 729w, https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/image3_lunarhighlands.png?resize=972,1200 972w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1041px) 100vw, 1041px\" \/><\/a><\/figure><figcaption class=\"hds-caption padding-y-2\">\n<div class=\"hds-caption-text p-sm margin-0\">NASA\u2019s Lucy spacecraft captured images of the Moon\u2019s surface on Oct 16, 2022, after flying by the Earth for its first of three gravity assists.<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Crater rims are vital landmarks for planetary science and navigation. Yet detecting them in real imagery is tough, with shadows, lighting shifts, and broken edges obscuring their shape.<\/p>\n<p>This project invites you to develop methods that can reliably fit ellipses to crater rims, helping advance future space exploration.<\/p>\n<p>In the pursuit of next generation, terrain-based optical navigation, NASA is developing a system that will use a visible-light camera on a spacecraft to capture orbital images of lunar terrain and process the imagery to:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>detect the crater rims in the images,<\/li>\n<li>identify the craters from a catalog, and<\/li>\n<li>estimate the camera\/vehicle position based on the identified craters.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The focus of this project is the crater detection process.<\/p>\n<p>Natural imagery varies significantly in lighting and will impact the completeness of crater rims in the images.<\/p>\n<p>Award: $55,000 in total prizes<\/p>\n<p>Open Date: November 25, 2025<\/p>\n<p>Close Date: January 19, 2026<\/p>\n<p>For more information, visit: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.topcoder.com\/nasa-crater-detection\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">https:\/\/www.topcoder.com\/nasa-crater-detection<\/a><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Crater rims are vital landmarks for planetary science and navigation. Yet detecting them in real imagery is tough, with shadows, lighting shifts, and broken edges obscuring their shape. This project invites you to develop methods that can reliably fit ellipses to crater rims, helping advance future space exploration. In the pursuit of next generation, terrain-based [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15705,16320,15787,15988,15966,15788],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-322905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-center-of-excellence-for-collaborative-innovation-coeci","category-coeci-news","category-get-involved","category-opportunities-to-contribute-to-nasa-missions-get-involved","category-prizes-challenges-crowdsourcing-news","category-prizes-challenges-and-crowdsourcing-program"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=322905"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322905\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":322972,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322905\/revisions\/322972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=322905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=322905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=322905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}