SDSU enhances rover reputation at NASA contest

South Dakota State University, which has built a name for itself in the building of lunar rovers and prototypes, has found success in one of NASA’s longest-standing student challenges.

An SDSU team consisting of five sophomores and one freshman finished second in the Human Exploration Rover Challenge at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center near NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, April 10-11. 

“In our first year of participating in the NASA HERC competition, we got second place in the remote-control division,” adviser and associate professor Todd Letcher said. First place went to the University of Alabama at Huntsville.

“For having no history with this competition that has been around for many years (32), and many teams have been doing it for many years, we were very proud and happy to have success right away,” he added.

While it was SDSU’s first year to enter the Human Exploration Rover Challenge, SDSU has been succeeding at building rovers of various dimensions since 2023, when it built a rover the size of a golf cart for the Break the Ice Lunar challenge. For the last three years, SDSU has received the award for having the best prototype at the Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concept-Academic Linkage contest.

TERRA up for the challenge

“We trusted what we had built, and that peace of mind carried us all the way to the starting line and through the competition.” Student Aiden DeWit, Sioux Falls

The rover for the Human Exploration Rover Challenge was battery-powered and about 18 inches long, 18 inches wide and 12 inches high.

The team dubbed the rover TERRA (Targeted Environmental Retrieval & Research Assistant). It and the 14 other entries invited to the finals were tasked with navigating a one-half mile obstacle course in 12 minutes or less. 

The obstacles varied from a big hill to climb, small craters to drive around or through and side slopes to navigate. The tasks that needed to be accomplished along the course were water sampling (measure pH), air sampling (measure carbon dioxide levels) and soil sampling (measure moisture content).  

Team member Aiden DeWit said they arrived at Huntsville confident because of what they had experienced at Dakota Nature Park in Brookings.

“I knew we had a chance when we took TERRA out for a test drive at a local bike park. Seeing what it was capable of in that environment gave me confidence that it could handle the majority of obstacles on the competition course, and that confidence turned out to be well placed,” DeWit said.

SDSU came in among the favorites

The team had not only had built a solid rover, the six-member squad also had not skimped on the required paperwork.

Noah Richardson, the team captain, said there was a 30-page design review that was due in late November and a 70-page operational readiness review that was due in late February. He called that the most challenging part of the competition.

But the team was up for the challenge. When scoring was announced in advance of the field competition, SDSU was in third place and just .7 of a point behind second place, Richardson said.

Letcher explained, “Twenty percent of the points were awarded for design review and another 20% for the operational readiness review. At the competition, points were earned by meeting mass and volume metrics, safety checks and then ultimately how the rover performed on the course. Successfully navigating each obstacle earned points as well as collecting a measurement at each task station and for getting accurate results.  

“I don’t have the exact scores, but we were within striking distance of first place. If we had a couple of things go a little better, it would have been extremely close.”

Young, but experienced squad

The Human Exploration Rover Challenge has been a yearlong project for the students.

Letcher said, “The first proposal for the project was due only a couple of weeks into the fall semester, so we had to quickly field a team and get started writing the proposal. The proposal was basically trying to get to the point of proving that we could be successful in building a rover and succeeding in the competition. 

“Our past experience in similar competitions made us credible. I think we heard that we made it into the competition by the end of September.”

The team featured four students who were part of the 2025 RASC-AL squad — Richardson, of Omaha, Nebraska; DeWit, of Sioux Falls; Evan Lauters, of Hawarden, Iowa; and Noah Larson, of Mitchell. Other HERC members were sophomore Parker Thorsland, of Brandon; and freshman Nick Joy, Eagan, Minnesota. All are mechanical engineering majors.

‘We trusted what we had built’

Letcher said, “If a few more things had gone our way, we might even have been able to get first place, but the team did great anyway. The part that makes me the most proud is that we had five sophomores and one freshman on the team. They all participated for fun and to learn new things. This wasn't a required class or even an elective class.  

“Many of the other teams in the competition do this as a class in their senior year, so our team was up against mostly older students with dedicated class time.”

DeWit said his experience in 2024-25 with the RASC-AL competition gave him a passion to continue the work.

“I joined the team because I wanted the opportunity to design and build another rover after my experience with RASC-AL last year. When I didn't see a fitting opportunity with this year’s RASC-AL themes, HERC was the natural next step. Having competed with RASC-AL last year gave me a level of confidence going into HERC that I don't think I would have had otherwise. 

“We trusted what we had built, and that peace of mind carried us all the way to the starting line and through the competition.”

Richardson added, “I thought we were going to win the competition from the amount of compliments and how impressed the judges sounded.”

Executive tour of flight center

In addition to the contest, the SDSU team got a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marshall Space Flight Center. Nick Sieler, a graduate adviser for the team who is from Sioux Falls, went to high school with Jenna Sayler, a Marshall employee whose mother serves with Letcher on the South Dakota Space Grant Consortium. 

Letcher said, “We went places and saw things that no one gets to see, except people working there. Highlights were the hot fire test of a rocket engine that we watched and felt from our car, a visit to the ISS (International Space Station) control room, the place where they talk to the astronauts all day and control all of their activities; the assembly building of the original Saturn V (rocket), and the machine shop where they make many of the large rocket parts and other space structures for NASA, Blue Origin and others.”

Richardson and DeWit both considered that the highlight of their trip.

Richardson said, “It was cool to see all the things they do down there. We even got to see them run their seven-axis CNC machine. When they turned it off, it was so huge we could actually go and stand on it. “

DeWit added, “Getting to walk through that historic facility and see the manufacturing floors and ISS command center up close was an experience I won't forget.”

During the trip, the students also had a chance to talk with Jon Haussler, who was one of the first people hired by Wernher von Braun and was one of the first employees at NASA Marshall. Von Braun was the first director of Marshall Space Flight Center and the chief architect of the Saturn V super heavy-lift launch vehicle that propelled the Apollo spacecraft to the moon.

Haussler was at Marshall April 11 as a visiting/retired scientist volunteer.  

Letcher said, “He was a wealth of knowledge and inspiration. Jon spent at least 30 minutes talking to us about his career and how to be successful within NASA and the aerospace industry. This was a complete accident that we got to talk to him, and it became a highlight of the trip.”

Richardson to compete in two finals

Because SDSU was the first team to compete April 10, “all of the NASA VIPs were there to kick off the competition, and we got to talk to all of them. Our team got to talk to and explain our rover to Rae Ann Meyer, the director of NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, which was a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” Letcher said.

The rover challenge was held on the same day (April 10) as the Artemis II splashdown. Consequently, the city of Huntsville held a watch party at a local park.

“Many of the components of Artemis II were either built or designed in Huntsville. It was really fun to be there for that (watch party) and to see all of them so happy to see a successful end of the mission,” Letcher said.

Richardson will make a trip to another NASA contest finals May 18-19. He is a member of one of three SDSU teams competing in the Gateways to Blue Skies competition at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.

He said, “Competing in two NASA competitions has been a challenge. It's not something that everyone should try, and you need to be very good at managing your time for school, work and both projects, which took me a bit longer than I'd like to figure out. 

“But it was also very fun being able to work on two completely different projects. I was able to learn a lot, and I'm very stoked that I was able to make it to the finals of both projects. Thanks to both teams for being so flexible and supportive of my decision to do both projects, which is what really made it possible after learning how to manage my time better.”