Students from the Space Resources Graduate program at Mines in partnership with Lunar Outpost have advanced to the semifinal level of NASA’s Break the Ice Lunar Challenge with their proposed Outpost Digger System (ODS). The Ice Diggers team was one of 15 teams that moved on to Phase 2 Level 1 with a design including two identical excavation vehicles that minimize mass and energy consumption while delivering 12 metric tons of icy Moon regolith in 15 days. The Mines team is lead by Prof. George Sowers and is composed of students Timofey Broslav, Michael Forlife, Maxwell Sissman, Matthew Rehberg, Ben Pemble, Joe Kenrick, Jackson Crutcher, Maghee McMullen, and Claire Thomas. Justin Cyrus and Forrest Meyen lead the effort from commercial partner Lunar Outpost, a Colorado-based company.
