Uploaded March 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
“I would consider everybody in the lab a friend.” Undergraduate and graduate students working in Michigan Tech’s Planetary Surface Technology Development Lab (PSTDL) are taking on NASA Centennial Challenges to support a sustained human presence on the moon. The competition is high stakes, with national prestige and financial prizes on the line, but the team who has progressed to the final four in the Watts on the Moon Challenge shake off the pressure with cooking nights, camping, and broomball.
Follow these problem-solving space nerds through a year of designing, testing—and winning—in the 2024 issue of Tech Magazine, online and in print now.
0:28 Establishing an infrastructure system on the moon
0:44 When the NASA test gets tricky
1:42 Designing energy storage and delivery
2:18 Lab’s ultimate goal: get hardware on the lunar surface
2:27 Handling stress with broomball and family dinners
3:05 What their advisor says about the team
Follow a year in the life of the Watts on the Moon team: https://www.mtu.edu/magazine/2024/stories/artemis-generation/
Explore projects in the Planetary Surface Technology Development Lab:
https://huskyworks.space/
Study Aerospace Engineering and do research right away:
https://huskyworks.space/
Plan your Tech visit and see for yourself:
https://www.mtu.edu/visit/
#TomorrowNeeds #MichiganTech
“I would consider everybody in the lab a friend.” Undergraduate and graduate students working in Michigan Tech’s Planetary Surface Technology Development Lab (PSTDL) are taking on NASA Centennial Challenges to support a sustained human presence on the moon. The competition is high stakes, with national prestige and financial prizes on the line, but the team who has progressed to the final four in the Watts on the Moon Challenge shake off the pressure with cooking nights, camping, and broomball.
Follow these problem-solving space nerds through a year of designing, testing—and winning—in the 2024 issue of Tech Magazine, online and in print now.
0:28 Establishing an infrastructure system on the moon
0:44 When the NASA test gets tricky
1:42 Designing energy storage and delivery
2:18 Lab’s ultimate goal: get hardware on the lunar surface
2:27 Handling stress with broomball and family dinners
3:05 What their advisor says about the team
Follow a year in the life of the Watts on the Moon team: https://www.mtu.edu/magazine/2024/stories/artemis-generation/
Explore projects in the Planetary Surface Technology Development Lab:
https://huskyworks.space/
Study Aerospace Engineering and do research right away:
https://huskyworks.space/
Plan your Tech visit and see for yourself:
https://www.mtu.edu/visit/
#TomorrowNeeds #MichiganTech
