I coordinated a large international student collaboration for RASC-AL '22 under the Portable Utility Pallet (PUP) theme. The team brought together 50+ students across Clarkson University (lead), Kyushu University, Khalifa University, and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. We worked from systems-level requirements toward a conceptual PUP design for Artemis-era lunar surface operations—energy storage and delivery, survival in the lunar environment, and interfaces for crew and robotic systems—with traceability framed alongside NASA systems engineering practice.
Systems integration and steering
A large part of my work was integrating the subsystems into one traceable architecture—making sure assumptions, interfaces, and numbers lined up across teams. I helped rationalize early design drafts and course-correct when proposals conflicted with requirements, with each other, or traded away robustness for local convenience. I also pushed to keep attention on systems-level optimizations: end-to-end energy and thermal paths, comms and control dependencies, and margins that had to hold on the Moon—not just strong subsystem slides in isolation.
What we set out to design
The Portable Utility Pallet is a surface asset meant to support long-duration lunar operations: a high-capacity energy store, self-contained generation (solar + MMRTG-class radioisotope power), protection against thermal and dust, wireless power transfer for thirsty users like rovers, and comms with a path to Lunar Gateway-class relays. Placed in a network, PUPs could act as positioning and health for distributed surface activity—not only a "battery on wheels," but part of a scalable lunar logistics story.
Mission context
The design was framed around Artemis-era surface needs: longer sortie timelines, larger operating radii, and infrastructure that can persist across the lunar day–night . A south polar reference environment implies severe thermal excursions; surviving that while delivering megawatt-class duty cycles to mobile assets is what motivates passive shielding, active thermal loops, and dust-tolerant power paths. Background motivation and program direction are summarized in NASA's Artemis plan; the competition is run through rascal.nianet.org.
Operational concept (three phases)
- Early Artemis: PUP as a high-capacity rover power bank and cargo carrier for long-range crew excursions.
- Intermediate site support: PUP as an on-site excursion hub for robotic precursors—charging, logistics, and staging ahead of heavier infrastructure.
- Long-term settlement: networked PUPs as building blocks for surface-wide wireless power grids and deep-space logistics terminals.
Systems snapshot (headline numbers)
These are the figures called out in our write-up; calculations, drawings, and part selections are in the report.
- Energy storage: Sion Power Licerion-class cells in a 160S × 18P arrangement; total pack on the order of ~210 kWh with a mission framing around ~125 kWh delivered to users at moderate depth-of-discharge; oil-bath packaging for mechanical and thermal buffering; BMS plus HV interlocks, pre-charge / discharge, and crew-visible safe-start sequencing.
- Thermal: multilayer insulation (MLI) for passive control; single-phase immersion cooling with pumped dielectric fluid, radiator rejection, and MMRTG waste-heat coupling for lunar-night survival.
- Dust: CO₂ snow cleaning for optical surfaces; mechanical brushing where emissivity is less sensitive; filtration on the coolant loop for fines intrusion.
- Generation: deployable Miura-fold solar arrays; MMRTG for continuous low-voltage housekeeping and thermal headroom.
- Power delivery: large-gap inductive (IPT) WPT—reported class values in our appendix include an ~85 kHz band, ~30 cm gap, coil diameter on the order of 600 mm, and modeled efficiency in the low 90% range for high-power transfer (see also NASA’s IPT for spaceflight systems).
- Comms & interface: high-rate X-band toward Gateway-class relays; touchscreen / radio / rover-linked control with standby, active, and power-preserving emergency modes; autonomous health beacons for nearby assets.
What the report covers
Beyond the architecture description, the document traces requirements through validation notes and risk-oriented discussion:
- Executive summary and integrated system overview
- Subsystem design: storage, passive/active thermal, dust mitigation, solar + RTG, IPT WPT, comms/UI
- Appendices: electrical safety / BMS thresholds, MLI and radiator sizing, dust strategy tables, MMRTG and IPT derivation
- References keyed to NASA, mission heritage, and peer literature
Note: RASC-AL entries are conceptual student designs; figures are for competition traceability and pedagogy, not flight qualification.
Team leads
- Alif Jakir — Clarkson University (team coordination)
- Komsun Tamanakijprasart — Kyushu University
- Noura Al Mansoori — Khalifa University
- Kwok Kin Nam — Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Advisors
- Clarkson: Prof. Michael Bazzocchi, Dr. Goodarz Ahmadi, Dr. Ronald Buckingham
- Kyushu: Prof. Hongru Chen, Prof. Hideaki Ogawa
- Khalifa: Prof. Roberto Sabatini, Dr. Elena Fantino, Dr. Sean Shan Min Swei, Dr. Yahya Zweiri
- HKUST: Dr. Stanley Y. Y. Leung, Prof. Rhea P. Liem
Team roster
Fifty-plus contributing students across the four universities—covering power electronics, thermal and dust mitigation, structures, communications, systems, and integration. The full list with institutional affiliation key is in the report.
Artifacts
- Full design write-up (Google Doc) — executive summary through appendices and references.
- Competition context (YouTube)
- NASA Artemis plan (PDF)
- RASC-AL competition (official site)