Three teams comprising 35 students across eight different MIT departments and Wellesley College have been at work since fall 2025, designing critical early infrastructure elements that a moon base would require. This June, their designs were recognized with five awards at NASA's 2026 Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts ' Academic Linkage (RASC-AL) Forum. Among 75 submissions and 14 finalists, the MIT teams earned first and second place in the competition, as well as three best-in-theme awards. The Exploration-Class Lunar Integrated Power SystEm (ECLIPSE) team won first place overall and first in its theme category, lunar surface power. The communications and navigation constellation team, MELIORA, won second place overall and first in its theme category on Mars communications, position navigation and timing, which included a strategy for proving the design at the moon. And CHEESEBURGER, a campaign to mine and process lunar regolith into oxygen, metals, and bricks, won first in...
learn more
