Illinois Micro-g NExT

Illinois Micro-g NExT Illinois Micro-g NExT is an undergraduate design team working on advanced tool designs to support future NASA missions to asteroids.

Micro-g NExT is a NASA JSC sponsored program where undergraduate students may design an exploration tool to be tested in NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory. NASA is seeking designs for tool configurations that can be used in preparation for a manned mission to a near-Earth asteroid. Undergraduate groups with accepted design proposals are invited to head to Houston to lead their experiments during

the Summer of 2016. The Illinois Team was 1 of 25 teams awarded the opportunity to build and test their tool at NASA facilities. The Illinois Micro-g NExT Team design team developed a hand-held, mechanically driven tool that will allow astronauts to chip off fragments of asteroids regolith and safely collect samples in microgravity environments. The undergraduate design team is composed of 5 students, 1 faculty advisor, and 1 NASA mentor:

Dr. Grace Gao: Faculty Advisor, Professor of Aerospace Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Dr. Jessica McLaughlin: NASA Mentor, EVA EMU Technical Representative at NASA Johnson Space Center

Zach Fester: Team Lead, Senior in Aerospace Engineering

Paul DeTrempe: Design Lead, Sophomore in Aerospace Engineering

Emilio Garcia: Educational Outreach Team, Freshman in Aerospace Engineering

Sarosh Hussain: Technical Writing Specialist, Senior in Aerospace Engineering

David Salmi: Educational Outreach Team, Freshman in Aerospace Engineering

Address

Champaign, IL
61820

General information

The Illinois Micro-g NExT Team is an organization within the Illinois Space Society (ISS). The ISS is the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS) chapter at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. " Micro-g Neutral Buoyancy Experiment Design Teams (Micro-g NExT) program challenges undergraduate students to design build, and test a tool or device that addresses an authentic, current space exploration problem. The overall experience includes hands-on engineering design, test operations, and educational/public outreach. Test operations are conducted in the simulated microgravity environment of the NASA Johnson Space Center Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL). Teams will propose design and prototyping of a tool or simulant identified by NASA engineers as necessary in space exploration missions. Professional NBL divers will test the tools and students will direct the divers from the Test Conductor Room of the NBL facility." https://microgravityuniversity.jsc.nasa.gov/theProgram/micro-g-next/index.cfm

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