The NASA Human Lander challenge marked its second year on June 26, granting $ 18,000 at a price to three university teams for their solutions for long -standing or super refrigerated cryogenic storage and transfer systems for space flights.
Based on the Artemis II crew flight test, the NASA Artemis III mission will send astronauts to explore the lunar region of the South pole with a human landing system and advanced space combinations, preparing humanity to finally go to Mars. Propulsion systems in space that use cryogenic liquids and propellers must remain extremely cold to stay in a liquid state and are essential to the success of the mission. The architecture of the Artemis mission will need these systems to operate for several weeks, even months.
NASA has announced the Embry-Rriddle Aeronautical University, Prescott as a general winner and a prize recipient of $ 10,000. Old Dominion University won second place and a prize of $ 5,000, followed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in third place and a price of $ 3,000.
Before the winners’ announcement, 12 finalist teams selected in April made their presentations to a panel of judges from NASA and industry as part of the final competition in Huntsville. As part of the Human Lander Challenge 2025, the university teams have developed solutions at the level of systems that could be used in the next 3 to 5 years for Artemis.
“Today’s innovation and exploration students today are mission designers, systems engineers and explorers of tomorrow,” said Juan Valenzuela, principal of propulsion systems and cryogenic fluid management subsystems, the NASA human landing system in Marshall Space Flight Center. “The concepts of challenge Lander Human during this year’s forum demonstrate the ingenuity, passion and determination of NASA and industry must help resolve long -standing cryogenic storage challenges to advance human exploration to deep space.”
The challenge is sponsored by the program of the agency’s human landing system within the Directorate of the Development Mission of Exploration Systems and managed by the National Institute of Aerospace.
Thanks to the Artemis campaign, NASA will send astronauts to explore the moon for scientific discovery, economic advantages and to build the bases of the first missions equipped with Mars – for the benefit of all.
For more information on Artemis missions, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/artemis
Corinne Beckinger
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256.544.0034
Corinne.m.beckinger@nasa.gov
