Students from the Space Resources Graduate program at Mines in partnership with Lunar Outpost have advanced to the finals of NASA’s Break the Ice Lunar Challenge with their Outpost Digger System (ODS). The Ice Diggers team was one of 6 teams that moved on to the final phase of the competition after putting two identical excavation vehicles to the test to demonstrate the durability of the technology. The Mines team lead by Prof. George Sowers won third place on Phase II of the competition and received $125,000 to continue to the last phase. In this last round of competitions, scheduled to take place in the spring of 2024, the prototype will travel to a NASA-designated test facility for testing excavation under reduced gravity – using gravity off-loading – and transportation over complex terrain, including rocks, craters, slopes, turns, and loose granular soil.
