News and Events

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...

Angel Abbud-Madrid, director of the Space Resources Program was featured on an E&E News article addressing competing international projects to travel to and explore resources on the Moon.

Prof. Kevin Cannon from the Space Resources Program was awarded a $2 million grant as Principal Investigator over two years to advance technology for extracting aluminum from lunar soil.  The Molten Aluminum Generation for Manufacturing Additively (MAGMA) project,...

Space Resources students Kenneth Liang and Mark Tolton were one of four teams selected by NASA to advance to the final level of the agency’s Watts on the Moon Challenge, which seeks solutions to transmit and store energy on the lunar surface. Ken and Mark formed...

The 23rd meeting of The Space Resources Roundtable (SRR) in collaboration with the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI) and sponsored by Lunar Outpost, Advanced Space, Honeybee Robotics, the European Space Resources Innovation Centre (ESRIC), Polimak, Karman+,...

University students from around the world gathered on May 31-June 1 at Mines for the second annual Over the Dusty Moon Challenge. Mines and Lockheed Martin hosted the competition with five teams to demonstrate the most effective system for conveying lunar regolith...

Anastasia Stepanova, a PhD student in the Mines Space Resources program was featured in a Space.com article.  Anastasia is a veteran of multiple missions here on Earth that simulate the conditions human crews would experience during spaceflight or long-duration...

Today, Australia's Minister for Industry and Science and dignitaries from the Australian Space Agency and NASA announced the selection of the Lunar Outpost Oceania Consortium as one of two successful groups to receive Stage 1 grant funding from the Australian...

A group of students from the Mines Space Resources Graduate program was one of seven teams selected to develop concepts supporting metal production on the Moon in NASA’s 2023 Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-Changing (BIG) Idea Challenge.  The proposed Lunar Alloy...

Angel Abbud-Madrid, Director of the Mines Space Resources Program talked  to Colorado Public Radio, Colorado Matters host Ryan Warner about the rapid growth of the space industry in Colorado.  The interview included startup company and Mines Space Resources program...

The Japanese financial publication Nikkei visited the Mines campus to learn about the Space Resources Program. Reporter Emily Hey wrote an article describing the various aspects of this unique program.

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...

Students from Colorado School of Mines’ Space Resources Graduate program have been selected to participate in Level 2 of the NASA Watts on the Moon Challenge, a competition part of the NASA Centennial Challenges Program seeking solutions for energy distribution,...

The 22nd meeting of The Space Resources Roundtable (SRR) in collaboration with the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI) and sponsored by Lunar Outpost, Advanced Space, Honeybee Robotics, OffWorld, Lockheed Martin, Karman+, Technogenia, Cislunar Industries, and...

Mines and Lockheed Martin held the inaugural Over the Dusty Moon Challenge on June 2-3, 2022.  Five university teams from around the world descended on the Mines campus to demonstrate the systems they designed and built for moving lunar regolith. Judging focused on...

NASA Deputy Administrator and former Space Shuttle Astronaut, Pam Melroy, visited the Center for Space Resources, toured its laboratories, and met with faculty of the Space Resources program.  After the visit, the Deputy Administrator posted on Twitter: "Thank you to...

Prof. Chris Dreyer from the Space Resources Program was recently awarded a $2 million grant as Principal Investigator over two years to develop tools and methods for autonomous landing pad construction on the Moon's surface.  The ASPECT project, funded under the Lunar...

Prof. George Sowers of the Space Resources program was recently appointed by NASA's Administrator, Bill Nelson to the NASA Advisory Council, in the Committee on Human Exploration and Space Operations. This Committee supports the advisory needs of the NASA...

Angel Abbud-Madrid, Director of the Space Resources program, along with graduate students Curtis Purrington, Ben Thrift, Timofey Broslav, and David Purcell, and undergraduate student Parmida Mahdavi were featured in an in-depth story by the Christian Science Monitor...

Blue Origin and Sierra Space announced plans for Orbital Reef, a commercially developed, owned, and operated space station to be built in low Earth orbit. The station will open the next chapter of human space exploration and development by facilitating the growth of a...

The Mines Center for Space Resources hosted an event and technical demonstration on October 19th with four international companies focused on how space debris can be turned into useful propellant in space.  In the "Trash to Treasure" event, Astroscale detailed how it...

Colorado School of Mines, in partnership with Lockheed Martin have teamed up to host a new global student design challenge open to student teams from any accredited university worldwide.  The Over the Dusty Moon Challenge will address a topic of increasing practical...

Students from the Space Resources Graduate program at Mines won second place and $75,000 for their proposed Lunar Ice Digging System, or LIDS at the NASA Break the Ice Lunar Challenge. LIDS would include three rovers – excavator, regolith hauler, and water hauler, as...

A team of Mines Space Resources graduate students was selected to develop innovative design ideas that will help NASA advance and execute its Moon to Mars exploration objectives. The selection is part of the 2022 Moon to Mars eXploration Systems and Habitation (M2M...

Alex Gilbert, PhD graduate student in the Space Resources program published a space resources policy article in the Milken Institute Review. The article argues that better technology, falling costs, and a rush of competitive energy from the private sector has put the...

Profs. Angel Abbud-Madrid and Chris Dreyer offered a 3-day Space Resources Professional Course as part of the Luxembourg Space Resources Week on April 15-17, 2021.  The course was co-organized by the Colorado School of Mines, the International Space University (ISU),...

Prof. Chris Dreyer has teamed up with Off Planet Research on a recently funded SBIR project by the National Science Foundation, entitled "Portable Production Process for icy Regoliths by Vapor Deposition."  The objective of the investigation is to create the...

Prof. George Sowers was featured in a Wall Street Journal video explaining NASA's plans to seek and utilize water on the Moon to fuel its mission to get humans to Mars.

Ross Centers, Joshua Schertz, Loren Kezer, and Adam Janikowski, graduate students of the Space Resources program have formed Hydrogen Alpha, the first space resources consultancy.  The company aims to connect entrepreneurs, researchers, and investors in the space...

Prof. George Sowers in partnership with Lunar Outpost has received an Air Force Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I award to develop an uncrewed modular space logistics hub located in a halo orbit around the Earth-Moon Lagrange Point 1 (EML1). The...

A Mines team has been selected as one of the awardees of the 2021 NASA BIG Idea Challenge on Dust Mitigation Technologies for Lunar Applications. The team consisting of graduate students Travis Vazansky, Bailey Burns, Thao Nguyen, David Purcell, Jonathan Slavik,...

Britt Adkins, graduate student in the Space Resources program has launched the Celestial Citizen website. With Celestial Citizen, Britt explores the intersection of urban planning, engineering, science, and social justice as humans look to build new societies in...

Prof. Ian Lange, currently serving on the White House Council of Economic Advisors (CEA), contributed to the Economic Report of the President chapter on space policy, entitled, "Exploring New Frontiers in Space Policy and Property Rights." The CEA found substantial...

Prof. Kevin Cannon was quoted on an article published in NATURE about the ongoing debate on the possible contamination of lunar polar ice by the various missions planned for the Moon in the next few years.

Prof. Abbud-Madrid, who was recently selected as member of the Committee on Planetary Protection of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, contributed to the publication of the report entitled, Planetary Protection for the Study of Lunar...

Profs. Craig Brice, Angel Abbud-Madrid, Zhenzhen Yu, and Kevin Cannon along with graduate student Peter Corwin have teamed up with Pioneer Astronautics and Honeybee Robotics in the Moon to Mars Oxygen and Steel Technology (MMOST) project.  This work is funded by a...

Dr. Kevin Cannon has joined the Mines Space Resources Program as Assistant Professor with a joint appointment with the Department of Geology and Geological Engineering.  Prof. Cannon comes to Mines from the University of Central Florida, where he was a postdoctoral...

Space Resources graduate student Curtis Purrington has received two different NASA awards in the last two months.  The first one is the NASA Space Technology Graduate Research Opportunities (NSTGRO) fellowship for his PhD research project entitled, "Locating and...

Prof. Angel Abbud-Madrid was interviewed by Scientific American on a recent article stressing the need to improve our knowledge of lunar water ice reserves to enable NASA's plans to establish a sustainable lunar outpost.

Prof. Morgan Bazilian and graduate student Alex Gilbert published an article in the National Interest on the geopolitics of space resources. The article considers the implications from the recent White House Executive Order and the Artemis Accords on the development...

Prof. George Sowers was featured on a Popular Mechanics article entitled, "Digging Up Regolith: Why Mining the Moon Seems More Possible than Ever," discussing how technical advances and political support are making the extraction of lunar resources closer to reality.

NASA's Spinoff 2020 Magazine showcased the zero-leak valve developed by the Doering Company for the water-mist fire extinguishers designed, tested, and launched in 2016 to the International Space Station by Mines in collaboration with ADA Technologies, Wyle, and NASA...

Profs. Chris Dreyer and Angel Abbud-Madrid are part of a project recently funded by NASA called SAMPLR (Sample Acquisition, Morphology Filtering, and Probing of Lunar Regolith) to develop lunar sample acquisition technology.  Using Maxar Technologies robotic arm...

The Space Resources program, its faculty and students, and research being conducted at the Center for Space Resources were featured in two episodes of Seeker entitled, "The Next Space Frontier Starts With Mining the Moon" and "Inside the Lab That's Turning Moon Water...

Prof. Greg Jackson is collaborating with OxEon Energy on a $1.8 million NASA project using electrochemical cells to split the Moon's frozen water into rocket fuel that could bring interplanetary fuel stations one step closer to reality.

Team CLOVER's design of a collapsible 3D-printed lunar rover wheel that would act almost like a “Ferris wheel of test tubes” wins manufacturing competition.

Computer Science Assistant Professor Tom Williams wins NASA Early Career Faculty Award by looking at ways to improve the human-robot relationship in the MIRROR Lab at Mines.

The Mines Space Resources Program was featured by Forbes in an article entitled, "A College For The Cosmos: The Colorado School Training Its Students To Become Space Colonizers." Mines President, Paul Johnson and Space Resources Program Director, Angel Abbud-Madrid...

Physics Today interviewed CSR Director, Angel Abbud-Madrid on how the prospect of off-planet outposts is spurring interest in space resources and transitioning this field from science fiction to science fact. The magazine also conducted a more in-depth interview on...

Brianne Treffner, a senior in Engineering Physics, and Gabriel Adriano, a senior in Chemical Engineering, will each receive a $10,000 scholarship from the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation, as well as mentorship and professional development opportunities throughout the...

Mines welcomed U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton to campus on Aug. 26 for a panel discussion on proposed legislation to support foundational science and technology research in the burgeoning field of space resources. The Space Resources Institute Act, H.R. 1029 is being...

WIRED interviewed Prof. Angel Abbud-Madrid, Director of the Center for Space Resources to find out just how lunar mining would work.

Profs. Angel Abbud-Madrid and George Sowers were featured on a PBS NOVA documentary entitled, "Back to the Moon."  After 50 years of the first lunar landing, they discussed the importance of lunar resources (such as water ice) to enable the next phase of robotic and...

Almost 50 years to the day since astronauts collected the first geologic samples from the Moon, Mines' new lunar test bed is becoming a playground for emerging space technology.

Prof. Angel Abbud-Madrid was featured in a recent article on the tech news site Digital Trends entitled, "Want to work in the stars? Here are six future space jobs you could hold," about future employment opportunities beyond Earth.

The 10th joint meeting of the Space Resources Roundtable (SRR) and the Planetary & Terrestrial Mining Sciences Symposium (PTMSS) sponsored by Advanced Space, Honeybee Robotics, Teledyne Brown Engineering, Lockheed Martin, and Deltion Innovations was held in June...

The Agence France-Presse published an article featuring Mining Engineering Department Professor Jamal Rostami discussing the design of tunnel boring machines capable of digging underground colonies for the first lunar inhabitants.

The New Yorker interviewed Space Resources professors George Sowers and Angel Abbud-Madrid for an article focusing on the current race to develop the Moon for science, profit, and pride, and how China, the U.S., and private companies are hunting for resources on the...

A Mines Capstone Design team achieved a spot in the finals of the NASA 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge. Partnering with the students was ICON, an Austin, Texas-based startup that specializes in 3D printing full-size homes.

"Colorado School of Mines engineers turn their talents from the terrestrial to the celestial" – that's the headline of a recent feature in The Denver Post highlighting Mines' first-of-its-kind space resources graduate program.  Interviewed for the article were Angel...

The space resources program at Colorado School of Mines — the first graduate degree program of its kind — was recently featured on Bloomberg's 24-hour global social media news network, TicToc.  Angel Abbud-Madrid, director of the Center for Space Resources at Mines,...

Faculty members from the Space Resources program (Ian Lange, George Sowers, Angel Abbud-Madrid, and Morgan Bazilian) along with Ian Christensen from the Secure World Foundation, recently published a policy article entitled, "New Policies Needed to Advance Space...

Prof. Paul Sava has been awarded funding from NASA to develop the highest-resolution 3D images ever of what lies in the interior of Mars' polar ice caps. "Just like on Earth, the ice caps are witnesses of the climate on Mars — it's a bit like observing tree rings,"...

Jared Atkinson, a PhD student in geophysics and researcher in the Center for Space Resources, was recently interviewed by NBC News about the Commercial Lunar Propellant Architecture study that he co-authored along with several faculty members and students of the Mines...

Prof. George Sowers talked about the recently released Commercial Lunar Propellant Architecture study and the new Mines Space Resources program with Dr. David Livingston on the January 7th episode of The Space Show.

Paul Morgan, senior geothermal geologist at the Colorado Geological Survey and faculty member of the Mines Center for Space Resources and Mines Geophysics professor Ebru Bozdag were interviewed by Fox31 Denver about their involvement in the NASA Mars InSight mission,...

George Sowers was recently interviewed by Nature about what it would take to build a sustainable base on the Moon.

Colorado School of Mines' first-of-its-kind graduate program in space resources was the subject of a recent story on National Public Radio's Morning Edition, entitled, "Space Mining — Learning How To Fuel An Interplanetary Gas Station." Reporter Dan Boyce spoke with...

Colorado School of Mines launched a first-of-its-kind graduate program in space resources this fall and CBS4 Denver covered the story.

George Sowers was interviewed by The Verge and asked why mining water on the Moon could open up space exploration, to which he responded, "Water is the oil of space."

Angel Abbud-Madrid discussed with Business Insider the findings of a new study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showing definitive evidence of water ice on the Moon's surface.

The new Mines Space Resources program was featured in the Colorado Public Radio Colorado Matters show with an interview with program director, Angel Abbud-Madrid entitled, "School Of Mines Debuts The World's First Degree Program For Space Mining."

Angel Abbud-Madrid recently appeared on National Public Radio's Science Friday show to discuss the discovery of liquid water under the Martian surface.

The new Space Resources program at Mines was recently profiled by Denver alt-weekly Westword in an article entitled, "The New Space Race: Colorado School of Mines has Plans that are out of this World!"

Researchers from the Center for Space Resources at Colorado School of Mines were recently featured in a Space.com article entitled, "Mining Moon Ice: Prospecting Plans Starting to Take Shape," about mining the moon for water ice.

Angel Abbud-Madrid gave a presentation entitled, "Resources Beyond Earth: Enabling Exploration and the New Space Economy," at the Space Bites event in the European Space Agency (ESA) European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in Noordwijk, The Netherlands...

Angel Abbud-Madrid, Director of the Center for Space Resources, was recently interviewed by U.S. News & World Report about growing interest from space agencies around the world in potential resources on the Moon.

The 9th joint meeting of The Space Resources Roundtable (SRR) and the Planetary & Terrestrial Mining Sciences Symposium (PTMSS) in collaboration with the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI) and sponsored by Advanced Space and Honeybee Robotics was held on June...

Paul Morgan, senior geothermal geologist at the CSM Colorado Geological Survey, was recently interviewed by Motherboard, a Vice Media website focused on tech and science news, about the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3) that was aboard the Mars InSight...

Dr. Abbud-Madrid addressed The Hague International Space Resources Governance Working Group at the University of Leiden, The Netherlands on April 23, 2018 with a talk entitled, "Space Resources Learning Curve: Exploration, Technology, and Commerce." Abbud-Madrid is an...

Dr. George Sowers was featured in Space News' coverage of the 34th Space Symposium, held on April 16-19 in Colorado Springs. Sowers was part of an expert panel on space mining and whether national or international law should govern the practice in the future. From the...

Dr. Abbud-Madrid presented a talk entitled, "Technology and Asteroid Science Working Together for the Successful Development of Asteroid Resources," at the Asteroid Science Intersections with In-Space Mine Engineering (ASIME-2018) workshop at the University of...

George Sowers was recently interviewed by the Denver Business Journal about the $642 million in Air Force satellite launch contracts awarded this month to United Launch Alliance and SpaceX. Sowers was Vice President and Chief Scientist at ULA before joining the Space...

9News Denver featured the launch of Mines first-of-its-kind graduate program in space resources on its "Next with Kyle Clark" show. Dr. Angel Abbud-Madrid, Director of the Center for Space Resources, was interviewed along with two graduate students who work in the...

Colorado School of Mines' first-of-its-kind graduate program in space resources was recently featured in a Denver Business Journal story. From the article: A new degree program at the Colorado School of Mines has opened a new frontier in the school’s expertise in...

Dr. Angel Abbud-Madrid participated in the 6th World Government Summit in Dubai, UAE on February 11, 2018 in a panel entitled, "The Next Goldmine - Selecting Resource-Rich Targets in Space," along with Lindy Elkins-Tanton (Director of School of Earth and Space...

A first-of-its-kind graduate program in space resources will officially lift off at Colorado School of Mines this fall. Post-baccalaureate certificates, master’s degrees and doctoral degrees will be offered through the unique interdisciplinary program, which aims to...

Prof. George Sowers talked about the new Mines Space Resources program with Dr. David Livingston on the January 28th episode of The Space Show.

A student team from Colorado School of Mines has qualified for the finals of the NASA Mars Ice Challenge for the second year in a row. Team MINERS, short for Martian Ice New-age Extraction and Recovery System, will be one of 10 collegiate teams facing off in the...

Prof. George Sowers discusses space resources on recent episode of Devil's Advocate with Jon Caldara on Colorado Public Television.

Prof. Angel Abbud-Madrid was interviewed by Science and National Geographic regarding the implication of the recent discovery of ice cliffs on Mars for water availability for human missions to the Red Planet.

Mines Space Resources graduate program featured in China Red Star News.

Profs. Jamal Rostami, Bill Eustes, and Chris Dreyer in collaboration with Thermal Space win NASA Early Stage Innovation grant to design an intelligent system to drill and characterize material in the lunar and Martian surfaces.

Prof. Richard Palin co-authored a Nature paper entitled, “The Divergent Fates of Primitive Hydrospheric Water on Earth and Mars,” offering clues on the loss of Mars’ ancient oceans.

Profs. Qi Han and Christopher Dreyer, along with collaborators from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, received a grant through the NASA Smallsat Technology Partnerships Initiative to develop and demonstrate new technologies and capabilities for small spacecraft.

Space Resources graduate program featured in WIRED magazine article by Sarah Scoles, titled "Want to Learn How to Mine in Space? There’s a School For You."

Prof. George Sowers article titled "Creating an Economy in Space" featured in Colorado Aerospace STEM Magazine.

Space Resources graduate program cited on Popular Mechanics as one of "the most innovative and exciting" programs in the nation, with Mines listed in the "Top Science and Tech Colleges" category

Prof. Ian Lange from Mines Economics & Business Division wins award from NASA's Emerging Space Office (ESO) for proposal entitled, "21st Century Trends in Space-Based Solar Power Generation and Storage."

Dr. Chris Dreyer, Associate Director of Engineering at the CSM Center for Space Resources, was interviewed on Colorado Public Radio's Colorado Matters about his NASA NIAC-funded research on asteroid mining. Dreyer, who is teaching Mines' first space resources...

Graduate student Duc Nguyen was awarded a NASA Space Technologies Research Fellowship (NSTRF) to develop ceramic microchannel reactors for synthesizing fuel on the surface of Mars.  The Primary Investigator is Associate Professor Neal P. Sullivan of the Mechanical...

Dr. Sowers testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space & Technology on September 7, 2017 about private sector exploration of the moon. Other witnesses included NASA’s director of advanced exploration systems and representatives...

Dr. George Sowers has joined the Space Resources program as Professor of Practice in Mechanical Engineering. Until recently, Dr. Sowers was Vice President and Chief Scientist at United Launch Alliance (ULA), where he helped develop over a dozen launch systems,...

A Mines student team took second place in the NASA RASC-AL Mars Ice Challenge by designing, building, and operating a drilling and extraction system to obtain water from a Mars soil/ice simulant at NASA Langley Research Center.

Profs. Junko Munakata Marr, Tzahi Cath, and Johan Vanneste have been awarded a NASA STTR Phase II award in collaboration with Mango Materials entitled, "A Novel, Membrane-Based Bioreactor Design to Enable a Closed-Loop System on Earth and Beyond," for potential...

Prof. Chris Dreyer will collaborate with Dr. Joel Sercel from TransAstra Corp. on a recent NASA SBIR Phase I award, entitled, "Microgravity Granular Material Research (MGMR) Facility for the International Space Station."

Prof. Chris Dreyer will collaborate with Dr. Joel Sercel from TransAstra Corp. on a recent NIAC Phase II award, entitled, "Optical Mining of Asteroids, Moons, and Planets to Enable Sustainable Human Exploration and Space Industrialization."

Dr. Angel Abbud-Madrid delivered a TEDx talk entitled “How to Live Off the Land in Space," on the importance of space resources utilization for the future of human and robotic space exploration