Next-generation space explorers are competing in NASA’s 16th annual Great Moonbuggy Race April 3-4.
Schedule a live interview on race day with students from your area — learn about how the teams design, build and test the moonbuggies to prepare to race on the simulated lunar surface at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala.
More than 75 student teams from 21 states, Puerto Rico, Canada, Germany, India and Romania will race their lightweight, two-person buggies against the clock over a three-quarter-mile course of sand, gravel pits, simulated lunar craters and other obstacles.
NASA’s Great Moonbuggy Race helps inspire and engage America’s next generation of scientists, engineers and explorers — those who will carry on the nation’s mission of exploration, to the moon and onward into the solar system.
The race was inspired by the first lunar roving vehicle, which was designed, developed and tested by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville in the late 1960s for use on the moon in the early 1970s.
Students, their families, friends and classmates can follow the Great Moonbuggy Race on Facebook and Twitter! Users can log on to those sites and search under “Moonbuggy.” NASA will send Twitter updates throughout the race, including finishing times for each team.
Satellite Interview Information:
Camile Sevier
(256) 544-2188
Story Information:
Angela Storey, Public & Employee Communications
(256) 544-0034
Satellite Coordinates:
AMC 6, Transponder 5C
72 Degrees West Longitude
Transmission Format: DVB-S
Downlink Freq.: 3785.5 MHz
Intermediate Freq.: 1364.5
Polarity = Vertical
FEC = 3/4
Data Rate = 6.000 Mb/s
Symbol Rate = 4.3404 Ms/s
Program = 0001 (LIMO)
Video PID = 0x1022 (hex) – 4130 (decimal)
Audio PID = 0X1023 (hex) – 4131 (decimal)
AC-3 PID = (Not Used)
PMT = 0x1020 (hex) 4128 (decimal) = 4128
For more event details, race rules, information on the course and photos from previous competitions, visit:
http://moonbuggy.msfc.nasa.gov
For more information about NASA and agency programs, visit:
