UH Students Make Space History With a Moon Power Grid ‘No One Has Ever Thought Of’

UH's Team PETAL made history as one of only 14 teams chosen and the first team ever from Hawaiʻi as finalists in NASA’s RASC-AL competition.

Imagine moving into a brand-new neighborhood where the power grid hasn’t been built yet — and the night lasts two straight weeks. That’s the exact problem NASA faces at the lunar South Pole, where Artemis astronauts will have to survive 336 hours of darkness at a stretch. A student team from the University of Hawaiʻi thinks it has the answer.

That team came together across two campuses: an interdisciplinary group from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa joined the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo on Project PETAL — short for Power Energy Transfer Architecture for the Lunar surface. Their blueprint lays out a self-building, nuclear-powered microgrid designed to keep astronauts alive in the harshest environment in the inner solar system.

Freshmen Up Against MIT — and Winning a Spot in the Finals

RASC-AL — NASA’s Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts–Academic Linkage competition — challenges university students to solve real engineering gaps the agency is actually facing. Out of a national field, Project PETAL advanced as one of just 14 finalist teams invited to present at the Competition Forum in Cocoa Beach, Florida.

“For this competition, we’re actually the first team from Hawaiʻi in its 25-year history,” says Nathan Chong, a Waipahu High School graduate and the UH Mānoa freshman computer-engineering major who led the effort.

Going up against institutions like MIT and Dartmouth was intense — especially given the age gap. “We’re freshmen and sophomores competing against teams where most, if not all, are seniors or graduate students,” Chong said. “It was daunting, but also a very proud moment, because we definitely held our own.”

Team PETAL celebrates their Project PETAL RASC-AL Forum presentation with shakas and big smiles.

Too Heavy to Launch: The Battery Problem

So why not just pack batteries? Surviving that freeze on lithium-ion alone would mean hauling roughly 58,000 kilograms of them from Earth — far too heavy and expensive for any rocket payload. Project PETAL skips the problem entirely, combining nuclear fission with in-situ (on-site) manufacturing to deliver a continuous 120 kW of power.

Eight automated mini-reactors are paired with an underground thermal vault — built from baked lunar soil — that banks excess waste heat for the long night, creating a remarkably resilient grid. The power then travels more than 10 kilometers to the crew’s habitat through a buried high-voltage direct current (HVDC) cable.

“We had a very generic problem, but we came up with a solution that was so creative. We made something that no one has ever thought of — and that’s what the RASC-AL judges are looking for. They really like when people come up with an innovative solution no one has tried before,” Chong said with a smile. “If you searched for our idea on the internet, you’re not gonna find it.”

A Dress Rehearsal for Mars

What makes Project PETAL more than a moon project is its reach. The team deliberately chose technologies that could transfer to Mars with only minor tweaks — meaning NASA could use the moon to flight-test a reliable power grid before the first humans ever set foot on the Red Planet.

Chong says Team PETAL will be better prepared to tackle the RASC-AL competition next year and they're already recruiting more members.

Built Across the Islands — by High Schoolers, Too

The project spanned multiple islands, with the UH Mānoa subteams handling power generation and transportation, while the UH Hilo subteam focused on sustainability. To stay aligned, the groups synchronized online every week. Remarkably, UH Hilo’s two contributors were dual-enrolled high school students. Chong calls their early work “truly monumental to the foundation of the project,” though spring-semester demands and college applications kept them from traveling to Florida.

They didn’t take home a trophy, but the milestone stands. “We didn’t place, and I’m kind of sad about that, but I’m really proud of what we accomplished — just being able to go up against teams that have done this every year for decades,” Chong said. “Our goal is to be back next year,” he added with a grin.

Members of Team PETAL (Courtesy: Project PETAL).