A team of students from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez won first place and the People’s Choice Award in NASA’s ORBIT Challenge, earning a $50,000 grant. The award recognized "Price," a project to develop technology for building infrastructure towers on the lunar surface. The competition took place at NASA Space Center Houston in Texas, drawing more than 100 teams, of which only about 20 proposals advanced to the final phase.
Ian Santiago Carrasquillo, a Mechanical Engineering student and program manager of NOVA UPRM, said NASA staff showed particular interest in the proposal after the contest and began conversations with the students. Christopher Rodríguez, also a Mechanical Engineering student, said the project took about six months, from initial conceptual stages to a functional prototype. The team is now preparing a formal proposal to NASA to define the next development phases; if the agency and the university reach an agreement, students could participate in validation and testing over the coming years.
Interim RUM chancellor Miguel A. Muñoz said the win strengthens the campus’s positioning as a source of strategic talent, while University of Puerto Rico president Zayira Jordán Conde said the recognition reaffirms the value of research experiences in the university system.