An Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University student team took first place in the NASA 2025 Human Lander Challenge for developing an innovative spacecraft fuel gauge system to tackle a propellant issue critical to the success of space exploration missions.
NASA experts who judged the competing teams’ presentations selected the team of student researchers from Embry-Riddle’s Prescott campus as the overall winner among 12 finalists, awarding the team the challenge’s grand prize of $10,000. The final competition was held in Huntsville, Alabama, near NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, in June.
“This is a major accomplishment against tough competition,” said Dr. Jeremy Ernst, Embry-Riddle’s vice president for research and doctoral programs.
NASA’s Human Lander Challenge, an initiative in its second year, is designed to address challenges in the development of human landing systems by involving undergraduate and graduate students in the generation of new technologies. This year’s challenge was focused on cryogenic, or super-chilled, fuel storage and transfer.
The Artemis III mission, which will send astronauts to explore the moon’s South Pole with a human landing system, will require systems to manage its cryogenic propellant for several weeks or months.
“This partnership not only accelerates cryogenics technology development but also prepares the Artemis Generation — the next generation of engineers and scientists — to drive future breakthroughs in spaceflight,” said Tiffany Russell Lockett, the office manager for NASA’s Human Landing Systems Mission Systems Management Office.
Dr. Kenneth Witcher, chancellor of Embry-Riddle’s Prescott Campus, said that “winning a national NASA competition judged by agency experts is an extraordinary achievement that reflects the talent, drive and ingenuity of our students.”
