Rules

Next to the Code of Honor the following rules apply to the competition.

Eligibility

• The Mars Express Power Challenge is open to everybody, including space experts, data-mining experts and citizen scientists.
• No nationality restrictions apply for the submission of solution files.

Winner

• No, there is no money for the winner, "only" the chance to improve the operations of the Mars Express spacecraft -> thus extending its life -> thus increasing the scientific data that this amazing mission is producing -> thus advancing humankind's knowledge. If this is not enough for you ........
• After the winner has been declared (see rules below) he/she must submit the code and a pdf document outlining, briefly, the method used.
• The winner will then be invited to visit the European Space Operation Center (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany to present the method and discuss its implications and possible improvements with the Mars Express operators. A maximum of 2000 Euros will be reimbursed for the visit, covering hotel, food and flight costs.
• Should the winner be unavailable to comply with the above rules, the second ranked team will be contacted instead, and so on.
• All participants have the chance to submit their code and a pdf document describing their solution to the attention of the Mars Express Orbiter operators. Received solutions will have a chance to be incorporated in the operation of the spacecraft, in which case authors will be kept "in the loop" at every stage.
• The winner is determined by the lowest score after the deadline when all data has been evaluated.
• In case of a tie, the earlier submission date wins.
• The final decision on the winner is subject to whether the participants conformed to the rules as checked by ESA Advanced Concepts Team.

License

By submitting their software, the authors grant to the organizers a license to use it for the purpose of verifying the challenge results and carrying out post-challenge analyses on other data. The authors retain all rights to their software. ESA will keep the software confidential. By accepting to visit ESOC and talk to the Mars Express operators, you agree to publicly release your model code and documentation under one of the Open Source Initiative-approved licenses listed under the heading "Popular Licences" in the Open Source Initiative's list of approved licenses at http://opensource.org/licences

Submission

• The use of additional publicly available data is allowed.
• Before the competition deadline, solutions, notebooks, code snippets may only be shared publicly. Private sharing between teams is thus not allowed.
• The submission limit is three submission within 24 hours per team.
• The leaderboard during the competition uses only a part of the submission data and might not reflect the final ranking.

Teams

• Every team is only allowed to submit with one account.
• Merging teams is not allowed.