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When NASA announced the finalists for its prestigious RASC-AL space design contest, South ��ֱ���� State University had doubly good reasons to celebrate.

Both of its entries in the Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concept-Academic Linkage contest were selected in the small lunar servicing and maintenance robot division. A total of 14 teams were selected in three divisions. 

Virginia Tech had four teams selected, including two in small lunar servicing and maintenance robot division. SDSU was the only other school with multiple selections. Other selections include engineering bluebloods Texas A&M, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Arizona State.

SDSU has shown an ability to compete with such schools in past RASC-AL competitions. In 2023, SDSU won its RASC-AL category. In 2024, it was second in its category and third overall. In both years, SDSU took best prototype honors.

“Now that we have two teams, our goal is to take first and second place,” said Todd Letcher, an associate professor in mechanical engineering who is faculty adviser for both teams.

This is the first time SDSU has had two finalists in RASC-AL. In fact, it is the first time SDSU had two entries in the contest. Letcher has traditionally entered a team from his senior design class, a capstone course. This year younger students approached him about getting involved in aerospace design and Letcher obliged.

“I gave you a road to drive on. You drove it,” Letcher told the group of younger students when they thanked him for providing the opportunity.

‘Absolutely outstanding to work with’

The younger group is comprised of two juniors and seven freshmen. They are: Bryson Love, freshman, Charlestown, Indiana; Channing Bloedel, freshman, Rapid City; Tyler Iverson, junior, Le Mars, Iowa; Addison Walz, junior, Albertville, Minnesota; Evan Lauters, freshman, Hawarden, Iowa; Noah Larson, freshman, Mitchell; Aiden DeWit, freshman, Sioux Falls; Gavin Neu, freshman, Canton; and Noah Richardson, freshman, Omaha, Nebraska.

All are mechanical engineering majors.

Letcher is ecstatic about them. “This team is mostly very young engineers who are just getting started but are working so hard. We meet on Thursday nights for a few hours. I give them assignments, and they come back the next week with the assignments and more done. They started the year knowing almost nothing about designing for space and have come so far. 

“This group has been absolutely outstanding to work with this year, and I'm really proud of them and so happy that they were able to get into the finals at such a young age. Can you image what these students are going to be doing when they are seniors?”

DeWit, who is in charge of wheel and drive train design for the team, said, “None of us have limited ourselves, saying we’re just freshmen.”

Consequently, the goal was to make the finals as soon as they began meeting in early September with Letcher and a group of graduate students who have had experience in NASA contests. Now the goal isn’t just to show up at Cocoa Beach, Florida, June 2-4 and enjoy the ocean. “We want to win it,” Love said.

Contestants were required to submit their project as a seven-page report and also upload a two-minute video. Teams can view each other’s videos after they are uploaded. It was the first thing the young team did after submitting its project at 10:55 p.m. Feb. 24 — five minutes before the deadline.

“There are definitely some great ideas out there,” remarked Bloedel.

Senior team felt pressure

One of the best may be from SDSU’s senior design team, who also has a goal to win the RASC-AL competition. 

Letcher said, “We purposely kept the two teams separated because we knew that each would end up using the best ideas and the projects would end up being very similar. Both teams have been wondering what the other team has been doing all year. I think we have two really good concepts for how to solve the same problems in two different ways.”

The top two overall teams will be awarded with additional travel stipends to present their concept at an aerospace conference later in 2025.

The senior design team is composed of Cameron Belair, Minneapolis; Mike Gross, Woodbury, Minnesota; and Quentin Strohm, Ames, Iowa.

While SDSU has a history of RASC-AL success, neither team said that prompted them to become RASC-AL competitors. Strohm said, “The contest is a great way to get a look into the top level of aerospace, and we’re proving we have the skills to be up there with all the top schools. I would love to work with NASA, SpaceX or Lockheed Martin.”

The seniors were certainly aware of the school’s RASC-AL history. When NASA announced the finalists March 20, Strohm said he was both “very excited and very relieved. There were a lot of expectations because of how the previous two teams have done. We wanted to prove we did a good job.”

Bloedel, part of the young team, was in an adviser’s office when he heard about his team’s selection. “I was jumping up and down screaming with joy. It was definitely top moment of my college career.”

Break the Ice sparks interest

Gross, who like Strohm will graduate in December, said, “Aerospace is definitely near the top of my list for a career.” He noted he had a small role in the Break the Ice Lunar Challenge last year, and this contest allowed him to take a bigger role.

Break the Ice was a three-year-long NASA contest that dealt with lunar excavation and soil delivery. It offered prizes of $1.5 million in the finals with competition open to the world, including existing space companies. SDSU was one of six teams to reach the finals.

Belair said, “I saw the RASC-AL competition as a good challenge. The scope of it is so broad. You have to do a little bit of everything to get a complete design.”

In the small lunar servicing and maintenance robot division, entrants were tasked with designing a robot of less than 500 kilograms for use on the lunar surface to supplement crew time performing tasks such as connecting cables, swapping payloads, inspecting systems and monitoring the lunar environment.

MANTIS rover can lift 1,000 kg

The focus is on design. Teams are not required to present a prototype at the finals; however, both SDSU teams plan to do so.

The senior design team, known as “MANTIS: Maintenance and Navigation for Technical Infrastructure Support,” is working on a quarter-scale prototype of their rover, which would be 2 meters by 2 meters and 3 meters high if built to full scale.

Strohm said, “We’re trying to make ours completely unique and not like anything that has been up on the lunar surface before.” One aspect of that is the umbilical, or cable, connectors. “Previously the connecting of cables was always done by hand. Using a connector on the rover is unique.”

Another unique aspect is its ability to lift 1,000 kilograms with loader arms that give it the appearance of a praying mantis.

“We tried to make the design as simple as possible so there are fewer things that could go wrong,” Belair said.

NOVA rover larger but shorter

The younger group, which is known as “NOVA: Next-gen Operations and Versatile Assistant,” looks completely different from the MANTIS rover.

However, Letcher said, “Some of the same concepts rose to the top with both projects, so that tells me they must be pretty good concepts. The biggest difference is the arms and how the teams have decided to perform the tasks NASA asked for.”

Tyler Iverson, a junior who serves a team lead, said, “We designed a multi-arm system that specializes in heavy lifting and finer functions along with a forklift system to help with heavier payloads. The forklift can lift 1,200 kilograms (2,645 pounds), and its big arm reaches 4 meters.”

Larger but shorter than the MANTIS rover, the NOVA rover measures 3 x 2 1/2 meters and is 1 1/2 meters tall.

To be ready for Expo April 22

Iverson said the team is pinning a lot of its hopes on the dual arm capabilities of the rover. 

“That’s where our innovations lie and where we are hoping to stand out in the competition,” he said. “There are a wide range of capabilities the arms can achieve.” The boom arm has large biceps while the mobile arm is suited for fine resolution work. The boom arm also can pick up the mobile arm and position it to work on a hard-to-reach portion of a lunar structure, Aiden DeWit said.


Iverson said the prototype is nearing completion with the body and drive train mechanically connected. The forklift, electronics and software still need to be assembled. Revisions also will be needed on the expanded proposal. He said NASA officials are wanting to know more about the rover and the type of operations it could do on the moon.

The MANTIS group has more work to do on its prototype, including 3D printing, but both teams plan to have a finished product by the college’s Engineering Expo April 22.

World of opportunities await

While they explore aerospace possibilities, the practicalities of finances will have the teams traveling to Cocoa Beach via paved highways. Each finalist team does receive a $6,500 stipend to facilitate their full participation, but past experience has taught Letcher not to trust professional shippers for transporting a prototype.

While making the finals of a NASA contest is what one student called “the coolest thing ever,” Letcher said what the students will experience at the finals — intermingling with other bright students, being questioned and encouraged by aerospace experts, and getting a backstage tour of Kennedy Space Center — will take their aerospace passions to another world. 

Nearly everyone that has participated in SDSU’s past RASC-AL teams have either continued into graduate studies or were able to land their dream aerospace industry jobs after the competition.