The NASA BIG Idea Challenge is a national competition for university teams to rapidly prototype and test technologies for the NASA Artemis missions. In 2022, the Challenge was to design, develop, and demonstrate robotic systems with alternative rover locomotion modalities for use in off-world extreme lunar terrain applications. I was selected to be a Technical Lead for the Caltech 2022 BIG Idea team. We developed LATTICE, the Lunar Architecture for Tree Traversal In-service-of Cabled Exploration. LATTICE is a self-constructing cableway system that is capable of transporting heavy payloads, such as small rovers and ISRUs, to and from lunar craters.

We were named one of seven Finalists in this Challenge and were awarded $180,000 from NASA and the National Institute for Aerospace (NIA) to build and test LATTICE. In November 2022, we were awarded the Visionary Concept Award at the 2022 BIG Idea Forum.

LATTICE Final Report and Poster submitted for the 2022 BIG Idea Forum

Lucerne Valley Technology Demonstration and LATTICE Lunar Mission Concept Videos

LATTICE presented at the 2022 NASA BIG Idea Forum (livestream video; starts at 3:01:10)