Team All Hands on Dec is on a mission to uncover the mysteries of the moon. The team won $1,000 and the top honors for Best Aerospace Engineering (AE) project at Georgia Tech’s Fall 2024 Capstone Design Expo held in the McCamish Pavilion on December 2.

Altogether, 107 student-led teams from nine schools and three colleges showcased their design projects to 120 judges and crowds of onlookers. 

All Hands on Dec team members Lauren Forcey, Frank Frazier, Daniel Gilliland, Bryce Laderoute, Schuyler McCaa, and Sayed Tabatabaei were among eight aerospace teams vying for the best AE project

Inspired by NASA’s Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts – Academic Linkage (RASC-AL) competition prompt, the team's objective was to conceptually conduct a detailed analysis of the resources at the moon's south pole and the composition of its lunar regolith using a rover and an orbiter. They aimed to measure the depth and mobility of water ice as well. While lunar regolith exists across the entire moon, the poles offer the best location to collect samples, due to their reduced exposure to light. This lack of light helps preserve water, ice, and other volatile materials, which would otherwise be dissipated by sunlight. Their project complements and enhances the work of NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. 

Their rover Lunar Exploration and Terrain Rover (LETO) will deploy from Falcon Heavy and land on the moon’s south pole. The rover will include an arm that will reach down and grab the lunar material and put it in a funnel. Once the material goes into the funnel, it will be analyzed using state-of-the-art science instrumentation such as mass and neutron spectrometers, neutron detectors, radars, pH and conductivity meters, and turbidity sensors.

The communications architecture features an orbiter that acts as a relay between LETO on the moon and the communication system on Earth, using NASA’s Deep Space Network. The orbiter will deploy into its communications orbit and use a high-gain antenna to transmit large amounts of data back to Earth with a focused signal at a fast rate, using telemetry. 

In addition to analyzing volatiles, LETO would support future lunar mapping and exploration missions, using navigational cameras, hazard avoidance camera, high-resolution imaging, and panoramic cameras.

The team’s biggest challenge was determining team talents and interests and then dividing the work. 

“I thought in senior design you could pick your teams, but I'm glad that we all came together because I've made a lot of friends out of this. I absolutely loved working with the team, and I'm so grateful that senior design allowed us to all get to know each other,” Forcey shared.