UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A team of students from Penn State’s Student Space Programs Lab (SSPL) received the Most Innovative Prize in both the prototype and the digital twin tracks for their entry in the NASA LunaRecycle Challenge, a $3 million, two-track, two-phase competition. This NASA Centennial Challenge was established to support the design and development of recycling solutions that reduce non-metabolic waste and improve the sustainability of longer-duration lunar missions.
According to NASA, a crew of four astronauts could generate more than 4,600 pounds of single-use waste over the course of a year. The LunaRecycle Challenge aims to manage trash volumes, minimize resource inputs and crew time, and allow for safe operation with minimal hazards. Sixteen teams from 11 U.S. states were selected for the second phase of the LunaRecycle Challenge, which met for final demonstrations at the University of Alabama in August.
Penn State was awarded both Most Innovative Prizes for their Resource Extraction and Conversion from Lunar Anthropogenic Inputs and Microwaves (RECLAIM) system, which won them $50,000 on the prototype track as well as $25,000 on the digital twin track. RECLAIM is a dual metals recycling and plastics pyrolysis system fed by high-power microwaves designed to sustainably recycle waste in space. Pyrolysis is the process of heating and decomposing organic material within an inert environment without the presence of oxygen.
The project built on previous work done by the SSPL, which took inspiration from the common household microwave oven. That redesigned system could smelt lunar materials for casting by better control of the microwave power and use of a redesigned heating chamber to withstand longer heating intervals.
Sven Bilén, SSPL’s faculty adviser, team lead, and professor of engineering design, electrical engineering, and aerospace engineering, said he challenged his students to build upon that idea for smelting with microwaves on the moon. He said the students were not chosen for the first round of the LunaRecycle Challenge, but were undeterred, continuing the research and receiving $50,000 in early spring to develop a prototype for phase two.
Olivia Schaffer, a junior in aerospace engineering, said she was excited for the team to win multiple awards for the RECLAIM project, and that the goal was always to be innovative and create something that could be used on the lunar surface.
“We decided to recycle aluminum struts,” Schaffer said. “After melting them down to molten metal, we had to cast it. Instead of using the typical green casting sand to make a sand mold, we used ilmenite, a material found in lunar regolith, or moon ‘dirt.’”
Schaffer and her colleague Abigail Ziegenfuss, a junior majoring in aerospace engineering, worked with co-team lead Aleksandra Radlińska, professor of civil and environmental engineering, to develop a recipe that made the ilmenite behave like wet sand, allowing it to be packed and shaped into the cast, with the ability to recycle and cast with it again, eliminating the need to have casting sand shipped on missions.
“For NASA to recognize us for innovation was so rewarding, and validated everything we’d worked on,” Schaffer said.
Charles McManus, a senior majoring in aerospace engineering, said the experience taught him everything from using specialized software to design a custom microwave resonance cavity to learning how to turn a wrench properly, and that LunaRecycle was an “incredible experience.”
“I cannot overstate the importance of seeing a full project cycle for myself,” McManus said. “I saw the direct consequence of hundreds of decisions and how they ultimately affected the system we were creating.”
Bilén emphasized the perseverance of the students involved and how the work could contribute to larger goals.
“The students learned so much over the summer,” Bilén said. “Winning the innovation prizes validates the hard work the students have put in and demonstrates that our concept, as well as the broader use of microwaves on the moon, should continue to be developed and will contribute to the long-term habitation of humans on the moon.”