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By NASA
by Dary Felix Garcia
NASA is preparing to make history by sending humans to the Moon’s South Pole. There, astronauts will conduct moonwalks for exploration, science experiments, and prepare humanity for the journey to Mars. Missions of this scale require extensive planning, especially when accounting for emergency scenarios such as a crew member becoming incapacitated.
To address this critical risk, the South Pole Safety Challenge invited the public to develop a compact, effective device capable of safely rescuing astronauts during emergency situations on the Moon’s surface. Given the harsh and unpredictable conditions of the lunar South Pole, the rescue system must be lightweight, easy to use, and able to transport an incapacitated crew member weighing approximately 755 lbs. (343 kg), representing the crew member and their suit, without the help of the lunar rover. It must also be capable of covering up to 1.24 miles (2 kilometers) across slopes as steep as 20 degrees.
“The initiative saved the government an estimated $1,000,000 and more than three years of work had the solutions been produced using in-house existing resources,” said Ryon Stewart, acting Program Manager of NASA’s Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation. “The effort demonstrated how crowdsourcing provides NASA with a wide diversity of innovative ideas and skills.”
The global challenge received 385 unique ideas from 61 countries. Five standout solutions received a share of the $45,000 prize purse. Each of the selected solutions demonstrated creativity, practicality, and direct relevance to NASA’s needs for future Moon missions.
The global challenge received 385 unique ideas from 61 countries. Five standout solutions received a share of the $45,000 prize purse. Each of the selected solutions demonstrated creativity, practicality, and direct relevance to NASA’s needs for future Moon missions.
First Place: VERTEX by Hugo Shelley – A self-deploying four-wheeled motorized stretcher that converts from a compact cylinder into a frame that securely encases an immobilized crew member for transport up to 6.2 miles (10 kilometers). Second Place: MoonWheel by Chamara Mahesh – A foldable manual trolley designed for challenging terrain and rapid deployment by an individual astronaut. Third Place: Portable Foldable Compact Emergency Stretcher by Sbarellati team – A foldable stretcher compatible with NASA’s Exploration Extravehicular Activity spacesuit. Third Place: Advanced Surface Transport for Rescue (ASTRA) by Pierre-Alexandre Aubé – A collapsible three-wheeled device with a 1.2 mile (2 kilometer) range. Third Place: Getting Rick to Roll! by InventorParents – A rapidly deployable, tool-free design suited for functionality in low gravity settings. NASA is identifying how to integrate some features of the winning ideas into current and future mission designs. Most intriguing are the collapsible concepts of many of the designs that would save crucial mass and volume. Additionally, the submissions offered innovative wheel designs to enhance current concepts. NASA expects to incorporate some features into planning for surface operations of the Moon.
HeroX hosted the challenge on behalf of NASA’s Extravehicular Activity and Human Surface Mobility Program. The NASA Tournament Lab, part of the Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing program in the Space Technology Mission Directorate, managed the challenge. The program supports global public competitions and crowdsourcing as tools to advance NASA research and development and other mission needs.
Find more opportunities at https://www.nasa.gov/get-involved/
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By NASA
4 Min Read NASA Student Challenge Prepares Future Designers for Lunar Missions
At NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, the next generation of lunar explorers and engineers are already hard at work. Some started with sketchbooks and others worked with computer-aided design files, but all had a vision of how design could thrive in extreme environments.
Thanks to NASA’s Student Design Challenge, Spacesuit User Interface Technologies for Students (SUITS), those visions are finding their way into real mission technologies.
NASA’s Spacesuit User Interface Technologies for Students (SUITS) teams test their augmented reality devices at the Mars Rock Yard during the 2025 test week at Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Credit: NASA/James Blair The SUITS challenge invites university and graduate students from across the U.S. to design, build, and test interactive displays integrated into spacesuit helmets, continuing an eight-year tradition of hands-on field evaluations that simulate conditions astronauts may face on the lunar surface. The technology aims to support astronauts with real-time navigation, task management, and scientific data visualization during moonwalks. While the challenge provides a unique opportunity to contribute to future lunar missions, for many participants, SUITS offers something more: a launchpad to aerospace careers.
The challenge fosters collaboration between students in design, engineering, and computer science—mirroring the teamwork needed for real mission development.
NASA SUITS teams test their augmented reality devices at Johnson’s Mars Rock Yard on May 21, 2025.
Credit: NASA/Robert Markowitz SUITS taught me how design can be pushed to solve for the many niche challenges that come with an environment as unique and unforgiving as space.
Keya Shah
Softgoods Engineering Technologist
Keya Shah, now a softgoods engineering technologist in Johnson’s Softgoods Laboratory, discovered her path through SUITS while studying industrial design at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD).
“SUITS taught me how design can be pushed to solve for the many niche challenges that come with an environment as unique and unforgiving as space,” Shah said. “Whether applied to digital or physical products, it gave me a deep understanding of how intuitive and thoughtfully designed solutions are vital for space exploration.”
As chief designer for her team’s 2024 Mars spacewalk project, Shah led more than 30 designers and developers through rounds of user flow mapping, iterative prototyping, and interface testing.
“Design holds its value in making you think beyond just the ‘what’ to solve a problem and figure out ‘how’ to make the solution most efficient and user-oriented,” she said, “SUITS emphasized that, and I continually strive to highlight these strengths with the softgoods I design.”
Shah now works on fabric-based flight hardware at Johnson, including thermal and acoustic insulation blankets, tool stowage packs, and spacesuit components.
“There’s a very exciting future in human space exploration at the intersection of softgoods with hardgoods and the digital world, through innovations like smart textiles, wearable technology, and soft robotics,” Shah said. “I look forward to being part of it.”
Softgoods Engineering Technologist Keya Shah evaluates the SUITS interface design during the 2025 test week.
Credit: NASA/James Blair For RISD alumnus Felix Arwen, now a softgoods engineer at Johnson, the challenge offered invaluable hands-on experience. “It gave me the opportunity to take projects from concept to a finished, tested product—something most classrooms didn’t push me to do,” Arwen said.
Serving as a technical adviser and liaison between SUITS designers and engineers, Arwen helped bridge gaps between disciplines—a skill critical to NASA’s team-based approach.
“It seems obvious now, but I didn’t always realize how much design contributes to space exploration,” Arwen said. “The creative, iterative process is invaluable. Our work isn’t just about aesthetics—it’s about usability, safety, and mission success.”
Arwen played a key role in expanding RISD’s presence across multiple NASA Student Design Challenges, including the Human Exploration Rover Challenge, the Micro-g Neutral Buoyancy Experiment Design Teams, and the Breakthrough, Innovative, and Game-changing Idea Challenge. The teams, often partnering with Brown University, demonstrated how a design-focused education can uniquely contribute to solving complex engineering problems.
“NASA’s Student Design Challenges gave me the structure to focus my efforts on learning new skills and pursuing projects I didn’t even know I’d be interested in,” he said.
It seems obvious now, but I didn’t always realize how much design contributes to space exploration. The creative, iterative process is invaluable. Our work isn’t just about aesthetics—it’s about usability, safety, and mission success.
Felix Arwen
Softgoods Engineer
Softgoods Engineer Felix Arwen tests hardware while wearing pressurized gloves inside a vacuum glovebox. Both Arwen and Shah remain involved with SUITS as mentors and judges, eager to support the next generation of space designers.
Their advice to current participants? Build a portfolio that reflects your passion, seek opportunities outside the classroom, and do not be afraid to apply for roles that might not seem to fit a designer.
“While the number of openings for a designer at NASA might be low, there will always be a need for good design work, and if you have the portfolio to back it up, you can apply to engineering roles that just might not know they need you yet,” Arwen said.
SUIT teams test their augmented reality devices during nighttime activities on May 21, 2025.
Credit: NASA/Robert MarkowitzNASA/Robert Markowitz As NASA prepares for lunar missions, the SUITS challenge continues to bridge the gap between student imagination and real-world innovation, inspiring a new wave of space-ready problem-solvers.
“Design pushes you to consistently ask ‘what if?’ and reimagine what’s possible,” Shah said. “That kind of perspective will always stay core to NASA.”
Are you interested in joining the next NASA SUITS challenge? Find more information here.
The next challenge will open for proposals at the end of August 2025.
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Sumer Loggins
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Last Updated Jun 10, 2025 Related Terms
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By NASA
Keith Barr was born only months before the historic Apollo 11 landing in 1969. While he was too young to witness that giant leap for mankind, the moment sparked a lifelong fascination that set him on a path to design technology that will carry astronauts farther into space than ever before.
Today, Barr serves as a chief engineer and Orion Docking Lidar Field Test lead at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. He spearheads the field testing of docking lidars for the Orion spacecraft, which will carry astronauts to the Moon on the Artemis III mission. These lidars are critical to enabling Orion to autonomously dock with the human landing system on Artemis III — the mission that will land astronauts near the Moon’s South Pole for the first time in history.
Keith Barr prepares for a wind lidar test flight in one of the U.S. Navy’s Twin Otter aircraft in support of the AC-130 Gunship lidar program. “The Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions are some of humanity’s greatest technical achievements,” he said. “To be part of the Artemis chapter is a profound honor.”
In recognition of his contributions, Barr was selected as a NASA Space Flight Awareness Honoree in 2025 for his exceptional dedication to astronaut safety and mission success. Established in 1963, NASA’s Space Flight Awareness Program celebrates individuals who play a vital role in supporting human spaceflight. The award is one of the highest honors presented to the agency’s workforce.
With a career spanning over 25 years at Lockheed Martin, Barr is now recognized as a renowned leader in lidar systems—technologies that use laser light to measure distances. He has led numerous lidar deployments and test programs across commercial aviation, wind energy, and military markets.
In 2019, Barr and his team began planning a multi-phase field campaign to validate Orion’s docking lidars under real-world conditions. They repurposed existing hardware, developed a drone-based simulation system, and conducted dynamic testing at Lockheed Martin facilities in Littleton, Colorado, and Santa Cruz, California.
In Littleton, the team conducted two phases of testing at the Space Operations Simulation Center, evaluating performance across distances ranging from 50 meters to docking. At the Santa Cruz facility, they began much farther out at 6,500 meters and tested down to 10 meters, just before the final docking phase.
Of all these efforts, Barr is especially proud of the ingenuity behind the Santa Cruz tests. To simulate a spacecraft docking scenario, he repurposed a lidar pointing gimbal and test trailer from previous projects and designed a drone-based test system with unprecedented accuracy.
“An often-overlooked portion of any field campaign is the measurement and understanding of truth,” he said. “The system I designed allowed us to record lidar and target positions with accuracy never before demonstrated in outdoor docking lidar testing.”
Testing at the Santa Cruz Facility in California often began before sunrise and continued past sunset to complete the full schedule. Here, a drone hovers at the 10-meter station-keeping waypoint as the sun sets in the background. The test stand at the Santa Cruz Facility had once been used for Agena upper stage rockets—a key piece of hardware used during the Gemini program in the 1960s. “We found a Gemini-era sticker on the door of the test bunker—likely from the time of Gemini VIII, the first space docking completed by Neil Armstrong and David Scott,” Barr said. “This really brought it home to me that we are simply part of the continuing story.”
Keith Barr operates a wind lidar during a live fire test in an AC-130 Gunship aircraft. He is seated next to an open door while flying at 18,000 feet over New Mexico in January 2017. Barr spent more than two decades working on WindTracer—a ground-based Doppler wind lidar system used to measure wind speed and turbulence at airports, wind farms, and in atmospheric research.
The transition from WindTracer to Orion presented new challenges. “Moving onto a space program has a steep learning curve, but I have found success in this new arena and I have learned that I can adapt and I shouldn’t be nervous about the unknown,” he said. “Learning new technologies, applications, and skills keeps my career fun and exciting and I look forward to the next giant leap—whatever it is.”
Keith Barr stands beside the Piper Cherokee 6 aircraft during his time as a captain for New England Airlines. Barr’s passion for flight moves in tandem with his pursuit of innovation. Over his career, he has flown over 1.6 million miles on commercial airlines. “I often joke that I’m on my fourth trip to the Moon and back—just in economy class,” he said.
Before specializing in lidar systems, Barr flew as a captain and assistant chief pilot at New England Airlines, operating small aircraft like the Piper Cherokee 6 and the Britten-Norman Islander.
He also worked at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, contributing to several NASA airborne missions aimed at unraveling the science behind global ozone depletion.
Keith Barr boards NASA’s DC-8 aircraft at Ames Research Center in California before heading to Salina, Kansas, to support a 1996 research mission studying how airplane emissions affect clouds and the atmosphere. As Barr reflects on his journey, he hopes to pass along a sense of legacy to the Artemis Generation. “We are in the process of writing the next chapter of human space exploration history, and our actions, successes, and troubles will be studied and analyzed well into the future,” he said. “We all need to consider how our actions will shape history.”
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By NASA
NASA’s RASSOR (Regolith Advanced Surface Systems Operations Robot) undergoes testing to extract simulated regolith, or the loose, fragmental material on the Moon’s surface, inside of the Granular Mechanics and Regolith Operations Lab at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on May 27. Ben Burdess, mechanical engineer at NASA Kennedy, observes RASSOR’s counterrotating drums digging up the lunar dust and creating a three-foot berm.
The opposing motion of the drums helps RASSOR grip the surface in low-gravity environments like the Moon or Mars. With this unique capability, RASSOR can traverse the rough surface to dig, load, haul, and dump regolith that could later be broken down into hydrogen, oxygen, or water, resources critical for sustaining human presence.
The primary objective was testing the bucket drums that will be used on NASA’s IPEx (In-Situ Resource Utilization Pilot Excavator). The RASSOR robot represents an earlier generation technology that informed the development of IPEx, serving as a precursor and foundational platform for the advanced excavation systems and autonomous capabilities now being demonstrated by this Moon-mining robot.
Image credit: NASA/Frank Michaux
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By NASA
5 Min Read NASA Knows: What is Lunar Regolith? (Grades 5-8)
This article is for students grades 5-8.
The surface of the Moon is covered in a thick layer of boulders, rocks, and dust. This dusty, rocky layer is called lunar regolith. It was created a long time ago when meteorites crashed into the Moon and broke up the ground. NASA scientists study the regolith to learn more about the Moon’s history. But the smallest parts of the regolith make exploring the Moon very hard! That is why scientists are working to understand it better and to keep astronauts safe during future lunar missions.
What is lunar regolith like?
Lunar regolith is full of tiny, sharp pieces that can act like little bits of broken glass. Unlike the dust and soil on Earth, the smallest pieces of regolith have not been worn down by wind or rain. These bits are rough, jagged, and cling to everything they touch – boots, gloves, tools, and even spacecraft! In pictures it might look like soft, harmless gray powder, but it is actually scratchy and can damage lunar landers, spacesuits, and robots. This makes working on the Moon a lot harder than it looks!
Is regolith harmful to astronauts?
The small parts of lunar regolith get stuck on spacesuits and can be brought inside the spacecraft. Once it is inside, it can cause some serious problems. The tiny, sharp pieces can make astronauts’ skin itchy, irritate their eyes, and even make them cough. If it gets into their lungs, it can make them sick. Scientists worry the damage from breathing in lunar regolith could keep bothering astronauts for a long time, even after they are back on Earth. That is why NASA scientists and technologists are working hard to find smart ways to deal with regolith and protect astronauts!
Can regolith damage NASA equipment?
Regolith doesn’t just cause trouble for astronauts. It can also damage important machines! It can scratch tools and cover up solar panels, causing them to stop working. It can also clog radiators, which are used to keep machines cool. The small bits of regolith can make surfaces slippery and hard to walk on. It can even make it tough for robots to move around. Unlike Earth’s soil, the Moon’s regolith isn’t packed down. Any time we move things around on the Moon’s surface, we spread the rough, dusty particles around. Can you imagine what a mess launching and landing a spacecraft would make?
All of this can make exploring the Moon much more difficult and even dangerous!
What is NASA doing to understand lunar regolith?
NASA is building many cool technologies to help deal with the harm regolith can cause. One of the tools technologists have already developed is call an Electrodynamic Dust Shield (EDS). It uses electricity to create a kind of force field that pushes the small particles away from tools on the Moon!
There are many ways NASA is working to understand lunar regolith. One interesting way is by using special cameras and lasers on landers to watch how the regolith moves when a spacecraft lands. This system is called SCALPPS, which stands for Stereo Cameras for Lunar Plume-Surface Studies. SCALPSS helps scientists see how the lunar regolith gets blown around during landings. It helps scientists to measure the size of the regolith pieces and the amount that flies up into the air during landing.
The more NASA knows about how regolith behaves, the better they can plan for safe missions!
Career Corner
Many types of scientists and engineers work together to understand lunar regolith. If you want to study space, here are some cool jobs you could have!
Planetary Geologist: These scientists are like detectives. They study how the things in space were formed, how they have changed, and what they can tell us about the rest of the solar system. Their work helps us understand what is in space.
Chemist: Chemists look at space rocks and space dust. They want to know what these materials are made of and how they were created.
Astrobiologist: Astrobiologists are studying to find clues of life beyond Earth. They study space to find out if life ever existed – or could exist – somewhere else in the universe.
Planetary Scientist: These scientists use pictures, data from spacecraft, and even samples from rocks and dust to learn about other worlds. They explore space without ever leaving Earth!
Remote Sensing Scientist: These scientists use satellites, drones, and special cameras to study planets from far away. It is like being a space spy who looks for clues from above.
Engineers: Engineers solve problems! Civil engineers, materials engineers, and geotechnical engineers work together to understand how regolith can best be used for building materials and get useful resources on the Moon.
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