NASA has named an MIT student team the top winner of Phase 2 of the LunaRecycle Challenge, a competition designed to develop innovative waste-recycling technologies for future missions to the Moon and deep space. The challenge targets common mission waste, including textiles, plastics, foams, and metals.
The Composites for Extraterrestrial Recycling By Engineering the Reuse and Upcycling of Zotek (CERBERUZ) team, made up of undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, received a combined $775,000 in prizes.
The MIT team’s technology repurposes materials such as Zotek foam as reinforcement instead of treating them as contaminants that must be separated from mixed waste. The recycled material is processed into powder that can be used to produce finished parts through injection molding or converted into filament for 3D printing.
CERBERUZ won both the prototype development track and the track focused on creating virtual models, known as digital twins, of recycling systems.
“The LunaRecycle Challenge finale is the culmination of two years of innovation spurred by this competition,” said Jennifer Edmundson, program manager for the Centennial Challenge at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. “It’s incredible to see these technologies go from concept to prototype to digital twin demonstration during this time. Driving rapid and creative innovation is what NASA’s challenge is all about.”
The NASA LunaRecycle Challenge is a $3 million, two-stage competition conducted in partnership with the University of Alabama’s Lee J. Styslinger Jr. Institute of Technology. Phase 2 required U.S. teams to submit a working prototype, with an optional digital twin serving as a virtual model of the recycling system.
Fourteen finalist teams from across the United States gathered at the University of Alabama’s Lee J. Styslinger Jr. College of Engineering in Tuscaloosa from August 24 through August 28 to demonstrate their recycling prototypes. Digital twin models from several teams were displayed alongside their physical systems.
Participants included university students, educators, entrepreneurs, and space technology enthusiasts. NASA encouraged teams to develop solutions that could support recycling during deep-space missions while also offering potential benefits for people on Earth.
In addition to the overall winner, nine teams received awards across the prototype, digital twin, and People’s Choice categories.
Prototype track winners:
- Second place overall ($225,000): Terasynth of Orlando, Florida, for its Lunar Re-Forge system.
- Most Innovative ($50,000): Penn State University’s RECLAIM team for its Microwave-Based Lunar Resource Extraction and Conversion from Anthropogenic Inputs system.
- Highest Mass Efficiency ($50,000): Cisrun of Rosemead, California, for its Carbon Capture and Feedstock Conversion for Extraterrestrial Reuse system.
- Most Types of Trash Recycled ($50,000): Team Lovegrove and LunaBrix from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina.
Digital twin track winners:
- Second place overall ($125,000): Moon Made of Boulder, Colorado, for Fiber Forge.
- Most Innovative ($25,000): RECLAIM from Penn State University for the RECLAIM system.
- Best Visualization ($25,000): Waste Parrot Technology of New York, New York.
People’s Choice winner ($25,000):
- Terasynth of Orlando, Florida, for its Lunar Re-Forge system.
“This competition highlights how collaboration can lead to amazing solutions,” said Chris Frangione, who manages the LunaRecycle Challenge in support of the NASA Centennial Challenge through the Amentum Space Exploration Division. “This finale shows what can be accomplished between Solver teams, the University of Alabama, and NASA when we bring together resources and good ideas toward a common goal.”
The Phase 2 awards build on the success of Phase 1, which generated record interest from innovators worldwide. More than 1,200 people registered for the competition, making it the most popular challenge in the 20-year history of the NASA Centennial Challenge.
Phase 1 allowed participants from around the world to submit prototype designs and digital twin concepts. A panel of 50 judges evaluated nearly 200 entries and selected 17 winners from five countries and nine U.S. states. Phase 2 submissions were required to be unrelated to the Phase 1 entries.
NASA’s Centennial Challenges program manages the LunaRecycle Challenge at the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center. The program is part of NASA’s Awards, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing Program within the Research and Technology Mission Directorate.
For more than 20 years, NASA’s Centennial Challenge has engaged the public in solving complex problems that support the agency’s missions. Previous challenges have contributed to advances in robotics, additive manufacturing, power and energy, textiles, chemistry, and biology.
The LunaRecycle Challenge is also supported by experts at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California, and NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.
Learn more about the NASA LunaRecycle Challenge:
www.nasa.gov/lunarecycle
Source: www.nasa.gov