COE Team Wins in NASA Moon Design Competition
In a recent aerospace design competition, students from Georgia Teach took first place honors in the 2009 Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concept Academic Linkage contest sponsored by NASA and the National Institute of Aerospace. In the graduate division, teams from Georgia Tech and North Carolina State University won for their project “Reusable Lunar Transportation Architecture Utilizing Orbital Propellant Depots.”
Competition Guidelines
The competition, which had separate graduate and undergraduate divisions, challenged the teams to consider conditions astronauts will face when humans return to the Moon. The teams were asked to design projects that could become part of real lunar exploration. An independent panel of space exploration experts drawn from NASA, industry and academia judged the entries which were scored on their final paper, oral presentations, technicality, and real-life concepts of the project.
Tech Students Involved
Georgia Tech team members included students Erik Axdahl (AE), Patrick Chai (AE), Michael Grimes (AE), Robert Rowland (IE) and Matthew Long (IE). Dr. Alan Wilhite (AE professor) of Georgia Tech served as the team’s advisor. The competition was held in Cocoa Beach, Florida, and students also toured NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and networked with industry experts.
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