Students present Lunar IceCube in DC

For the second consecutive year, two students from MSU's Space Systems Engineering (SSE) graduate program exhibited the Lunar IceCube at NASA's Technology on the Hill event, which was held May 9, in Washington, D.C.  

Kennedy Haught of Kenova, West Virginia, and Sarah Wilczewsk of Cleveland, Ohio, presented the satellite before 350 event attendees and eight members of Congress. Technology on the Hill features display booths from technology innovators from across the country. Haught and Wilczewski displayed a real-size engineering model of the Lunar IceCube satellite and a model of the DM-7 radiation hardened dependable multiprocessor and ground station, DSS-17, as well as the integration of the system designed at MSU with NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Deep Space Network. 

"I was honored to represent MSU at the event last year, as well as this year," said Haught. "To be entrusted with displaying the projects that represent our program to congressmen, fellow exhibitors and the general public at this annual NASA event brings me great pride to be an MSU Eagle."  

The Lunar IceCube was built at MSU's Space Science Center and will hitch a ride into space with NASA's Space Launch System EM-1/Orion Test Flight, scheduled for December 2019. While in space, the Lunar IceCube will enter a wide elliptical orbit around the moon, collecting data on water and other lunar volatiles in the moon's atmosphere. It will travel as close as 60 miles from the lunar surface in its search for evidence that water once existed on the moon.  

"To be part of the team building the first CubeSat to travel to the moon, on NASA’s EM-1 mission of the Space Launch System no less, is an immense honor and a valuable foundation for my career. I never could have predicted that my time at MSU would provide an opportunity to work on such an innovative project as Lunar IceCube," said Haught. 

For more information on MSU's Department of Earth and Space Sciences, visit www.moreheadstate.edu/eass.