For second consecutive year UAH engineering students win NASA competition

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WAFF) – Engineering students at the University of Alabama in Huntsville have lots to be excited about in terms of taking top honors in a NASA competition for the second year in a row.

Students captured a first-place victory in the NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge (HERC) competition on April 19-20 at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center. This year’s competition required two students, at least one female, to traverse a half-mile course that included a simulated field of asteroid debris, boulders, erosion ruts, crevasses and an ancient streambed.

UAH has secured first-place victories five times in the 30-year history of the HERC event. UAH students took top honors in 1996, 2012, 2018, 2023 and 2024.

Over 600 students with 72 teams participating and representing over 40 colleges and universities as well as 30 high schools from 24 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, as well as 13 other nations.

The university said the UAH rover was named THESEUS for Transportable Human Exploration System Equipped for Unconventional Surfaces. The rover completed the course in a blistering 5:00 for Excursion 1 and 5:33 for Excursion 2 the following day, well under the eight-minute requirement, while employing a task tool developed by the team to perform various mission goals along the way.

“Last year’s victory reinforced the importance of an intelligent task tool design, which was the make-or-break facet of the competition both then and now,” said team member Karissa Coggin. “Starting early and doing rigorous trade studies and testing set us up for success. Several rover subsystems last year gave a foundation for huge improvements this year, including wheels, drivetrain and frame. With these improvements, we were able to attempt all 10 obstacles and conquer eight of them.”

In addition, officials said the UAH team took the top prize in the Project Review Award category.

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