Two UH Hilo geology students go on a “lunar mission”
Mock experiments included remotely operating a planetary rover from a mission control center in Hilo, navigating rocky, lunar-like terrain and gathering environmental data.
Over the summer, two students from the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo, Kyla Defore and Ashley Garnett, conducted a mock lunar mission at a planetary analog test site on Hawaiʻi Island.
The two UH Hilo geology students were interns at the Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems, or PISCES, based in Hilo. PISCES conducts environmentally-safe field tests on Hawaii’s volcanic terrain to experiment and validate advanced space technologies under the jurisdiction of the Hawaiʻi State Department of Land and Natural Resources.
Defore and Garnett’s pivotal project involved a mock lunar mission at a planetary analog test site on Hawaiʻi Island. The students remotely operated the PISCES planetary rover from a mission control center in Hilo, navigating rocky, lunar-like terrain and gathering environmental data.
“Summer interns play a critical role in PISCES projects and this year was no exception,” says Rodrigo Romo, PISCES program manager “The two intern teams we had working with us in Planetary Geology and Robotics clearly displayed the high quality of students that the Hawaiʻi education system produces.”
During their internships, Defore and Garnett researched and characterized landscapes on Hawaiʻi Island that are geologically similar to those found on Mars and the Moon. Their findings could support future In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) space missions, yielding resources like water and rocket fuel on other celestial bodies.
The two interns also supported the 2016 STARS (STem Aerospace Research Scholars) workshop for high school women by leading engineering activities for a group of eight young women.
“It has been an honor and a pleasure to have these interns work with us this year, and I look forward to the next group of interns to come and work with us,” Romo says.
During the past three years PISCES has trained 31 interns from 12 schools nationwide across 10 different disciplines. The internship program is part of the PISCES workforce development initiative with state and county agencies.
