Caltech Undergraduates Selected as Finalists in 2024 NASA BIG Idea Challenge

For the third time, a team of Caltech undergraduate students have been selected as finalists in NASA's Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-Changing (BIG) Idea Challenge.

The NASA BIG Idea Challenge asks "student innovators to propose novel inflatable component and system concepts that could benefit future Artemis missions to the Moon and beyond," and finalists receive funding to design, build, and test prototypes. This year's Caltech team has been selected for the project PILLARS: Plume-deployed Inflatable for Launch and Landing Abrasive Regolith Shielding. The team's advisors include Soon-Jo Chung, Bren Professor of Control and Dynamical Systems; Jet Propulsion Laboratory Senior Research Scientist, and Kalind Carpenter, JPL Robotics Mechanical Engineer.

The student leaders on the PILLARS project are:

• Kevin Gauld, Project Management Lead
• Lily Coffin, Systems Lead
• Bella Kwaterski, Materials Lead
• Trey Scott, Deployment Lead
• Sam Foxman, Fluids Lead
• Hannah Ramsperger, Mission Concept co-Lead
• Emily Xu, Mission Concept co-Lead

In addition to the team's advisors, mentors on the project include Joseph Shepherd, C. L. "Kelly" Johnson Professor of Aeronautics and Mechanical Engineering, and Charles Elachi, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Planetary Science, Emeritus.

Finalists will present their project during the 2024 BIG Idea Challenge Forum, November 5-7, 2024, at NASA Langley in Hampton, VA.

Previous Caltech entries into the NASA BIG Idea Challenge include HOMES: Habitat Orientable & Modular Electrodynamic Shield and LATTICE: Lunar Architecture for Tree Traversal in-service-of Cable Exploration.