Lightweight and robust polymer bearing technology for Moon Buggy in NASA competition

Kunststofflagertechnik helps young designers to victory in the NASA MoonBuggy World Championship.

The "International NASA MoonBuggy Race" is an annual competition organised by NASA in which young designers compete against each other with their vehicles. On the particularly demanding hilly parkour, the teams are confronted with challenges that are very similar to those on the surface of Mars. The young designers from the NASA Space Education Team from Leipzig won the competition thanks to their particularly lightweight yet robust polymer bearing technology.

igus® MoonBuggy in the exhibition at the Space & Rocket Centre in Huntsville, Alabama

During a visit to igus® at the main site in Cologne, the young designers of the NASA Space Education Team from Leipzig were able to gain an insight into where their bearings come from and how they are produced and tested so that they can withstand conditions such as those in the MoonBuggy trade show. The many impressions they gained during the visit gave them lots of new ideas. In the next generation of the MoonBuggy, even more metal components are to be replaced by plastic solutions. This year, the team brought home four awards from the "International NASA MoonBuggy Race" and a very special surprise for igus®. The glowing orange igus® MoonBuggy will remain on permanent display at the US Space & Rocket Centre in Huntsville, Alabama, for a period of one year. There it stands next to the original MoonBuggy.

We are very happy about this. Thanks to young and courageous developers and designers such as the young designers of the NASA Space Education Team from Leipzig, plastic will play an increasingly important role in the future and many new innovative solutions and applications will be created.