Submitted by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
Two Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University student teams competed in the June finals of NASA’s 2026 Human Lander Challenge (HuLC), earning national recognition for technologies designed to help sustain astronauts during future deep-space missions.
The Prescott Campus team advanced with a proposal for an oxygen-recovery system for long-duration spaceflight, while the Daytona Beach Campus team was selected for a concept focused on water recovery and management. The Daytona Beach team ultimately won third place.
Administered by the National Institute of Aerospace on behalf of NASA, the Human Lander Challenge invites university students to develop innovative solutions to engineering challenges associated with future human exploration missions. The 2026 competition focused on environmental control and life support systems, the technologies that sustain astronauts during missions to destinations such as the moon and Mars.
Prescott’s 3rd consecutive year
For the third consecutive year, students with the Professional Association of Research and Space Engineering Concepts organization at the Prescott Campus have earned a place among the challenge’s finalists. Grant Bowers, the organization’s program manager and a software engineering senior, says the organization’s is the only team to have qualified as a finalist in every forum to date. The team earned first place in 2025 and was recognized for systems engineering in 2024.
This year, the team’s project addressed a key challenge for future deep-space exploration: generating oxygen efficiently while reducing dependence on costly resupply missions from Earth.
“When we eventually venture out to the moon, Mars and beyond, the cost of resupply becomes more expensive and dangerous,” says Sanaya Nichani, deputy program manager and an aerospace engineering senior. “To keep astronauts aboard these eventual missions safe, closing the loop is required as a means of having a fully sustainable environment so they can stay off-world for longer periods of time.”
The team proposed a project titled Atmospheric Electrochemical Transformation for Habitat and Environmental Regeneration (AETHER), a sustainable oxygen-generation system that converts carbon dioxide into usable oxygen.
“Systems like AETHER are what humans will need to design and implement into the environmental control and life support system architecture NASA is currently building in order to have successful space missions,” Bowers says.
Dr. Siwei Fan, an assistant professor of aerospace engineering and the project’s faculty adviser, say the concept could help reduce reliance on conventional oxygen-generation methods by directly recovering oxygen from carbon dioxide.
“The broader significance of AETHER lies not only in oxygen generation, but in how we design life-support systems for human space exploration, from spacecraft and space stations to lunar and Martian habitats,” he says.
Daytona Beach wins with water plan
Embry-Riddle’s Daytona Beach Campus won third-place recognition with its Advanced Quality Orbital Rehydration Assembly (AQUORA), a concept focused on water management during future lunar missions.
Developed by students in the university’s Advanced Space Technologies Research Applications (ASTRA) Lab, the system seeks to improve how astronauts access and manage drinking water during long-duration missions on the moon. The team built on technology already proven aboard the International Space Station.
