Cal Poly students to help NASA drill for water on Mars and the moon. Yes, really
A team of Cal Poly engineering students was chosen to help NASA find ways to harvest water on Mars and the moon to ultimately support sustained human life on the moon.
Cal Poly is one of nine universities chosen to participate in the Moon to Mars Ice & Prospecting Challenge to identify solutions to harvest water to further NASA’s goal of prolonged space missions, according to a Cal Poly news release sent Friday.
NASA’s primary goals include returning humans to the moon by 2024 and sustaining human presence there by 2028, the release said. Eventually, NASA seeks to land humans on Mars.
“Well beyond the Earth, finding and extracting water in these alien environments may sound like science fiction,” Richard Davis, assistant director for science and exploration for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said in the release. “Yet almost daily, new technologies and capabilities are emerging that bring us closer and closer to being able to sustain humans on the moon or Mars.
“Arguably, the most vital capability is our ability to find and harvest water — which is critical for sustaining life.”
According to the release, the Cal Poly team has been commissioned to design systems to extract as much water as possible from simulated slices of lunar and Martian surfaces and do four specific things:
- Drill through unknown layers of dirt, rock, clay and concrete that simulate lunar and/or Martian terrain;
Find solid ice frozen beneath these layers and determine how to extract water from the ice;
Filter the extracted water; and
Use system telemetry to determine how many layers are inside the test beds and provide a density profile for each of the layers.
Five Cal Poly mechanical engineering students have been working on the project since early October submitted an eight-page report summarizing their project called Sub-lunar Tap-Yielding eXplorer (STYX), the release said
“We took on a very accelerated pace for the project, and the scope is massive,” student Alex Krenitsky, who leads the linear motion and drilling systems effort, said in the release. “We paid for our success in sleep, but it was worth it, and we are excited to continue the grind.”
According to Cal Poly, the team will receive $10,000 to prepare for a multi-day competition at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, next June. Team members can also seek out additional funding to support the project.
Team members include Chris Boone, Aaron Erickson, Ryan Locatelli and Westin McHaney.
Cal Poly is one of two California university teams selected for the NASA challenge. USC was also selected.
This story was originally published January 10, 2020 at 11:45 AM with the headline "Cal Poly students to help NASA drill for water on Mars and the moon. Yes, really."
