SDSU engineering students are competing against the best of all possible competition to build a product to operate in the worst of all possible conditions.
Space Trajectory, a team of mechanical and electrical engineering students, was one of 15 finalists selected for NASA’s Break the Ice Lunar Challenge, which is designed to develop new technologies that could support a sustained human presence on the moon by the end of the decade. With NASA scheduled to send astronauts to the surface of the moon in 2024, this has taken increased priority.
NASA has identified several technology gaps related to harvesting and moving large quantities of resources on the moon.
Those gaps include having hardware capable of operating in extreme cold and in permanent to near-permanent darkness. “Robotic systems for excavation will need to withstand the harsh environments inside permanently shadowed regions at the lunar South Pole, where ice has been observed and is the targeted landing site for crewed Artemis missions,” NASA reported while announcing the challenge.
“Technologies and hardware from the Break the Ice Lunar Challenge will get us one step closer to excavating icy regolith on the lunar surface, providing critical water resources and excavation activities needed to build the infrastructure on the moon,” according to Denise Morris, acting Centennial Challenges program manager at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
