MIT students won $925,000 turning lunar trash into parts

A team of MIT students has won first prize in both tracks of NASA's LunaRecycle Challenge for building a system that turns lunar trash into usable parts. The group, called CERBERUZ, grinds non-biological waste into powder, melts it, and injects it into molds to produce composite components, cutting the need for expensive shipments from Earth. Their process uses no water and no chemicals, a deliberate choice for a place where you cannot restock either. One of the harder materials to handle was Zotek F30, an aerospace packaging foam so light it defeats intuition. "We had big shipments of Zotek coming in, and one person can carry them on their head like it's nothing," says José Soto, a graduate student and the team's pre-processing lead. "The box is the size of a person." The win caps nearly two years of work and $925,000 in prize money, which the team hopes to pour back into MIT's Space Resources Workshop for the students who come next.