NASA Rocket Launch Carries Mars Rover Designs Students Engineered For Space

NASA recently launched Mars rovers that students had designed, sending them into space for about 20 minutes to see how they would perform high above Earth's surface. The students working on the robotics project were from Virginia Tech and the University of Central Florida, NASA reported, and they used 3D printing to build the prototypes that could be used to explore Mars but would store easily, with features like folding or collapsible parts. The rocket last week sent them up 154 miles, then brought them down with a parachute into the Atlantic Ocean. "Part of the problem we keep running into is packaging," NASA research engineer Jamshid Samareh said in the space agency's statement. "We have to carry a lot of payloads -- rovers, habitats and such. We want to package them on top of the launch vehicle. Rovers have classically been bulky and heavy. The students helped design 18 of the more lightweight and less cumbersome Mars rovers, four of which were built and launched on the NASA rocket. "I have always thought of mass to be the limiting factor in space travel," Virginia Tech student Alex Matta, said in the NASA statement. "Participation in this project led me to realize that minimizing volume of the cargo is important as well." The students offered a fresh set of eyes and minds to the effort. Students watch a NASA rocket carry their Mars rover designs into space. NASA research engineer Jamshid Samareh shows off one of the student-made Mars rover designs that recently launched into space. "They come up with these ideas that I cannot come up with," Samareh said. "They have a different mentality.