HuLC

Who We Are:

The Human Lander Challenge (HuLC) is a university level NASA competition, where college students help develop technologies and concepts for a variety of challenges posed by the Human Landing System (HLS), which aims to take humans back to the moon. This year’s competition asks teams to design innovative solutions to mitigate lunar plume surface interaction (PSI), which are the effects of rocket plumes reacting with the planetary surface. The team will conduct trade studies analyzing different methods of reducing PSI and engineer a system which can be implemented to the current HLS landers in development in a cost and time efficient manner. 

2024-2025 Theme: Prolonging Cryogenic Propellant Storage

In-space propulsion systems utilizing cryogenic liquids as propellants are necessary to achieve NASA’s exploration missions to the Moon, and later to Mars. In current state of the art (SOA) human scale, in-space propulsion vehicles, cryogenic liquids can be stored for several hours. In order for the planned HLS mission architecture to close, cryogenic liquids must be stored on-orbit on the order of several months

To join or for more information please contact HuLC Lead Cliff Sun (cliffxs2@illinois.edu), and check out the competition’s website.

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Why You Should Join:

  1. Leadership Opportunities: HuLC provides students across all years of college to be sub-team leads, regardless of prior knowledge in the field. Being a sub team lead provides invaluable experiences as you get to own a major aspect of the project and learn how to lead a group of engineers.

  2. Early Career Development: As a member of the team, you will get to own a system to its full extent - from the initial preliminary design reviews (PDR) to its implementation into the wider project. Companies value engineers who not only showcase technical knowledge, but also ownership of systems and HuLC provides the perfect opportunity to develop this. The team will also be working with professors and consulting industry professionals, creating opportunities to get research and internship positions! Selected teams also get to present at the HuLC forum, where NASA and other Aerospace Companies hold an exclusive recruiting event, providing the perfect opportunity to network and obtain jobs.

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