Delaware State University receives a three-year grant from NASA.
The $899,000 grant is for DSU to contribute its engineering and optics expertise to the future Lunar Land Rover Mission on the moon.
Infrared sensing and laser technology for the Lunar Land Rover is slated to be designed and developed at DSU.
It will enable the detection and correlation of water isotopes with the characteristics of the elemental composition of lunar rocks and dust.
NASA wants to use the moon to see how humans can live outside of the earth’s environment, and water isotope detection is an important factor.
DSU professor Dr. Mohammed Amir Khan is director of the school’s Physics and Engineering Program and principal investigator of this DSU project.
"I think it's exciting for a lot of us in this area especially. There's a lot of research going on into exploration of moon, lunar, Artemis Missions, and also to other planets like Mars, Venus. So it's a pretty exciting time for a lot of us," said Khan.
The grant is part of $14 million NASA is investing in colleges and universities to grow STEM capacity, and to build a new generation of diverse students for careers in STEM fields.
DSU science students will be engaged in different parts of this project.
"There will be undergraduate and graduate students working on developing different modules of the project, and that's another aspect of the grant that NASA wants to see a next generation workforce," said Khan.
Dr. Yuri Markushin – DSU Associate Professor – is the co-principal investigator on the project.
