Iowa State Micro-g NExT

We are actually ahead of schedule tune in now to the livestream!!

First day at the NBL! CyRocks is beyond excited for this week at the Johnson Space Center!

Suited up and ready to go! Our operations team just got done with our first round of lunar dust/regolith testing! Operations members Jack Mendoza, and Rodrigo Romero were in the regolith chamber while Team Manager, Aaron Simpson, and Operations Team Lead, Emilee Evans, were in the operating room.

Lunar regolith is an issue for many space tools due to how abrasive and sharp the dust is. If lunar regolith clogs or seeps into the lunar tool, the tool’s functionality is compromised. Our team has done plenty of research about lunar dust and how to mitigate it in our device.
Since our team is prototyping a lunar reusable surface anchoring device that would be constantly exposed in lunar regolith on the Moon, it is extremely important.

The main two ways that our team prevented lunar dust in our device was enclosing our internal components in the locking mechanism, and adding side covers to our surface mechanisms enclosing the foam. As you can see, those mitigation strategies worked excellent when our device was covered in regolith. There was very minimal dust that seeped into our device.

All team members present in this testing had to undergo a training process and read a manual. Each team member had on a half face respirator while the team members in the chamber also had on a fully enclosed suit. Safety is a top priority for our team!

Overall, the device was tested successfully in the regolith chamber and showed the team that lunar regolith will not be a problem for our device! We lifted a rock in the chamber and also anchored to a rock while measuring the holding force.

The design proposal may be submitted, but it's never too early to be planning manufacturing and evaluating areas of design improvements! We want our lunar tool device to be the best it can be for NASA Astronauts! Our team is excited each day to be participating in the NASA STEM challenge!

Success! We are so happy to announce that our team has completed and submitted our proposal and concept pitch video for a lunar reusable surface anchoring device as part of the NASA Micro-g NExT Challenge! We have spent the past several months brainstorming, computer modeling, prototyping, and testing our idea in order to reach this critical milestone. Our team is so excited that we get to contribute to space exploration! We are looking forward to seeing if we are selected to advance in the challenge so we can continue our work next semester!