The Anatolian Rover Challenge, organized for the third time this year by the Space Exploration Society Association, was hosted by ODTÜ and ODTÜ TEKNOKENT, with TÜBİTAK UZAY and Turkish Space Agency as the main stakeholders.
21 teams from 4 countries applied and 16 teams made it to the finals. ARC2024 competition aims to contribute directly to the Lunar Research Program of our country. University teams designed their own Rover vehicles and performed different missions in the Analog Moon and Analog Mars fields.
During the opening ceremony, Mr. M. Mehmet NEFES, TUBITAK UZAY Institute Director, announced the grand prize of the competition, which was practiced on the carefully prepared sites of carefully selected geological regions on the surfaces of Mars and the Moon. The winning team was entitled to test its Rover vehicle free of charge at PTS Space's International Lunar Research Test Center equipped with Regolith Simulant in Germany. Ankara Deputy Mr. After the opening ceremony with the participation of Ms. Zeynep YILDIZ, MP of Ankara and the protocol, the races consisting of four missions were held with great enthusiasm and competition.
The International Anatolia Planet Explorer Competition, supported by TÜBİTAK UZAY as the main stakeholder, has been held continuously for three years with the aim of creating a mission infrastructure, facilitating the determination of the mission concept, increasing international interaction and training qualified human resources for the goal of sending an exploration vehicle (Rover) to the lunar surface in the 2030s within the scope of the second phase of our country's AYAP project.
The winner of the ARC competition was Project Scorpio team from Poland, while the runner-up was Mist Mongol Barota from Bangladesh. The third place was won by SKA Rover, another Polish team.
The ARC Junior 24 Competition, which was held in conjunction with the ARC 24 Competition, where smaller Rover vehicles in terms of weight and size competed in the free category, witnessed a separate excitement. 11 teams competed fiercely in the competition and the interest of our young people was worth seeing.
While the excitement and pride of TÜRKSAT 6A, the First Domestic and National Communication Satellite of our country, which we have recently launched into space, is still very fresh, the fact that our young people from our country and abroad have already started working for our future goals in the field of space and their wishes and desires in this regard made us both happy and reminded us once again how great our responsibilities are!
As TÜBİTAK UZAY, we will always support our young people whose goals and dreams do not fit in the world and we will succeed together!
