New York: Five US universities have won NASA’s 2024 Human Lander Challenge (HuLC) for different innovative concepts addressing the complex issue of managing lunar dust during the impending Moon exploration campaign Artemis, the space agency said.
Dust mitigation during the landing of the Artemis mission is a key challenge that NASA and its partners aim to address in exploring the lunar South Pole region and establishing a long-term human presence on the Moon.
The team from the University of Michigan was selected as the overall winner, NASA said. The university was awarded $10,000.
The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign bagged the second prize and a $5,000 award, followed by the University of Colorado Boulder which received a $3,000 award. Further, Texas A&M University and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Prescott bagged the Excellence in Systems Engineering award.