Awards

First Place Overall and Best in Theme: Lunar Surface Power and Power Management and Distribution Architectures

by NASA (2026 RASC-AL Forum)

for ECLIPSE: Exploration-Class Lunar Integrated Power SystEm

Second Place Overall and Best in Theme: Communication, Position, Navigation and Timing Architectures for Mars Surface Operations

by NASA (2026 RASC-AL Forum)

for MELIORA: Mars Exploration Layered Infrastructure for Operations, Research, and Advancement

Best in Theme: Lunar Technology Demonstrations Leveraging Common Infrastructure

by NASA (2026 RASC-AL Forum)

for CHEESEBURGER: CLPS-enabled Highly-autonomous End-to-End ISRU-System Evaluations to Build Understanding and Resilient Growth by Experimenting with Regolith

Phase I and Phase II Milestone Round Winner

by NASA LunaRecycle Centennial Challenge (2025)

for CERBERUZ: Composites for Extraterrestrial Recycling By Engineering the Reuse and Upcycling of Zotek

Second Place Overall

by NASA (Lunar Autonomy Challenge 2025)

for MAPLE: MIT Autonomous Pathfinding for Lunar Exploration

Third Place Overall

by NASA (2025 Human Lander Challenge)

for THERMOS: Translunar HEat Rejection and Mixing for Orbital Sustainability

Best in Theme: Long Duration Mars Simulation at the Moon

by NASA (2024 RASC-AL Forum)

for Project MARTEMIS: Mars Architecture Research using Taguchi Experiments on the Moon, with International Solidarity

AIAA Aeronautics and Astronautics Teaching Award 2024

by the students of the MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics

for Outstanding teaching at Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Best Paper in Track 13: System Engineering, Management and Cost

by IEEE Aerospace Conference (2024)

for Leveraging Economies of Scale and Gains from Specialization for Robust Crewed Mars Architectures

First Place Overall and Best in Theme: Homesteading Mars

by NASA (2023 RASC-AL Forum)

for PALE RED DOT: Polis-based Architecture for the Long-term Exploration of the Red planet

M. Charles Fogg Best Conference Paper and Best Paper in Track 13

by IEEE Aerospace Conference (2023)

for WORMS: Field-Reconfigurable robots for Extreme Lunar Terrain

Best Technical Paper

by NASA (2022 BIG Idea Challenge)

for WORMS: Walking Oligomeric Robotic Mobility System

First Place Overall and Best in Theme: Mars Water-based ISRU Architecture

by NASA (2022 RASC-AL Forum)

for BART + MARGE: Bipropellant All-in-one in situ Resource utilization Truck and Mobile Autonomous Reactor Generating Electricity

Apollo Program Prize for Best Graduate Research

by Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, MIT (2022)

for Outstanding efforts in leading teams representing MIT in NASA-sponsored projects and competitions that aim at harvesting local resources for the establishment of future sustainable human settlements on the Moon and on Mars

First Place Overall, Most Water Collected and Best Technical Poster

by NASA (2021 RASC-AL Special Edition)

for HYDRATION III: High-Yield Dihydrogen monoxide Recovery And Terrain Identification On New worlds

Path to Flight Award

by NASA (2020 BIG Idea Challenge)

for MELLTT: Multifunctional Expandable Lunar Lightweight, Tall Tower

Renee H. Miller Prize in Systems Engineering

by Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, MIT (2020)

for Exemplary leadership of projects that will advance human space exploration and the settlement of other planets

First Place Overall

by The Mars Society (2019 Mars Colony Design Competition)

for Star City, Mars

Honorable Mention and Best Technical Paper

by NASA (2019 RASC-AL Special Edition)

for HYDRATION: High-Yield Dihydrogen monoxide Retrieval Assembly and Terrain Identification On New worlds (2019)

Second Place Overall

by NASA (2019 BIG Idea Challenge)

for BEAVER: Biosphere Engineered Architecture for Viable Extraterrestrial Residence

Best Technical Paper

by NASA (2018 RASC-AL Special Edition)

for HYDRA: High-Yield Dihydrogen monoxide Retrieval Assembly

First Place in Graduate Division

by NASA (2017 RASC-AL Forum)

George Lordos

Space

Papers

Awards

Press

Contact

Awards

for ECLIPSE: Exploration-Class Lunar Integrated Power SystEm

for MELIORA: Mars Exploration Layered Infrastructure for Operations, Research, and Advancement

for CHEESEBURGER: CLPS-enabled Highly-autonomous End-to-End ISRU-System Evaluations to Build Understanding and Resilient Growth by Experimenting with Regolith

for CERBERUZ: Composites for Extraterrestrial Recycling By Engineering the Reuse and Upcycling of Zotek

for MAPLE: MIT Autonomous Pathfinding for Lunar Exploration

for THERMOS: Translunar HEat Rejection and Mixing for Orbital Sustainability

for Project MARTEMIS: Mars Architecture Research using Taguchi Experiments on the Moon, with International Solidarity

for Outstanding teaching at Massachusetts Institute of Technology

for Leveraging Economies of Scale and Gains from Specialization for Robust Crewed Mars Architectures

for PALE RED DOT: Polis-based Architecture for the Long-term Exploration of the Red planet

for WORMS: Field-Reconfigurable robots for Extreme Lunar Terrain

for WORMS: Walking Oligomeric Robotic Mobility System

for BART + MARGE: Bipropellant All-in-one in situ Resource utilization Truck and Mobile Autonomous Reactor Generating Electricity

for Outstanding efforts in leading teams representing MIT in NASA-sponsored projects and competitions that aim at harvesting local resources for the establishment of future sustainable human settlements on the Moon and on Mars

for HYDRATION III: High-Yield Dihydrogen monoxide Recovery And Terrain Identification On New worlds

for MELLTT: Multifunctional Expandable Lunar Lightweight, Tall Tower

for Exemplary leadership of projects that will advance human space exploration and the settlement of other planets

for Star City, Mars

for HYDRATION: High-Yield Dihydrogen monoxide Retrieval Assembly and Terrain Identification On New worlds (2019)

for BEAVER: Biosphere Engineered Architecture for Viable Extraterrestrial Residence

for HYDRA: High-Yield Dihydrogen monoxide Retrieval Assembly

for MARINA: MAnaged Reconfigurable In-space Nodal Assembly