LCATS

LCATS is a three-year Space-STEM program run by WEX Foundation with NASA support. It connects students with aerospace professionals through projects about exploring and eventually inhabiting the Moon. Local Texas caves provide Earth-based analog environments for investigating lunar cave exploration. The curriculum progresses through remote sensing, robotics, and habitation within the LEAP2 lunar site-development framework.

My participation included remote sensing and rocket and high-altitude balloon activities concerned with studying the atmosphere. It was an introduction to approaching exploration through measurements, rather than only through concepts on a page.

We built and programmed LEGO prototypes to explore how a rover could traverse lunar terrain. We also 3D-printed the ball at the rear of the pictured assembly as part of a rover concept, connecting our code to a physical mechanism we could inspect.

The printed ball introduced too much friction. We proposed graphite as a dry lubricant at the contact surfaces, with the aim of addressing friction around the gaps between printed layers. The useful lesson was the need to consider the printed surface and its material behavior alongside the robot’s geometry and programming.

I also researched human space habitats. This extended the exploration work into a different question: what would it take for people to live in an environment after it has been surveyed? It connected the sensing and robotics activities to the wider context of human habitation.

Selected laboratory photographs from my LCATS experience: chambers, instrumentation, and test equipment. Open any image for a closer look.