International Anatolian Rover Challenge, organized for the third time this year by the Space Exploration Society Association (UKET), 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 directly contribute to the national “Lunar Research Program”. University teams designed their own rover vehicles and performed different missions in the Analog Moon and Analog Mars fields.
During the opening ceremony, Mr. Mustafa Mehmet NEFES, Director of TUBITAK UZAY Institute, announced the grand prize of the competition, which was practiced on the carefully selected geological regions of the “Mars and Moon” surfaces. The winning team received the right to test the Rover vehicle free of charge at PTS Space's International Lunar Exploration Test Center equipped with Regolith Simulant in Germany. After the opening ceremony with the participation of Ankara Member of Parliament Ms. Zeynep YILDIZ and the protocol, the races consisting of four missions were held with great enthusiasm and competition.
The International Anatolian Anatolian Rover 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 “Lunar Research Project”.
The winner of the ARC competition was Project Scorpio from Poland, while the runner-up team was Mist Mongol Barota from Bangladesh. Another Polish team, SKA Rover, came third.
The ARC Junior 24 Challenge, which was held in conjunction with the ARC 24 Challenge and in which smaller Rover vehicles in terms of weight and size competed in the free category, witnessed a different excitement. 11 teams competed fiercely in the competition and the interest of our young people was worth seeing.
While we are still experiencing the excitement and pride of TÜRKSAT 6A, the First Domestic and National Communication Satellite of our country, which we launched into space in the past weeks, 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 willingness and desire in this regard made us both happy and reminded us once again how great our responsibilities are!
As we TÜBİTAK UZAY, will always support our young people/students whose goals and dreams do not fit in the world and we will succeed together!
