Elijah Cobb was a Ph.D. student studying Computer Science at Michigan Technological University (MTU). Elijah earned a Bachelor's in Computer Science from MTU in the fall of 2021. Throughout his undergraduate degree, Elijah was involved with many research projects funded by NASA, the US Navy, and the National Science Foundation. Elijah has experience in the industry through leading the software development for a start-up, Ampel Feedback. As a Ph.D. student, Elijah aims at developing novel software solutions for robotics in aerospace applications. In addition, Elijah is a Graduate Researcher at the Planetary Surface Technology Development Lab (pstdl.com), a research laboratory at MTU developing in-situ resource utilization technologies for lunar and martian applications. Elijah left his graduate program in April 2022 for a position in industry.
Past Projects
NASA LuSTR 2020The PSTDL was a recipient of a 2020 NASA’s Lunar Surface Technology Research grant (LuSTR20) for the development of a lunar prospecting instrument known as the Percussive Hot Cone Penetrometer (PHCP) in combination with Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR). The goal of this project is to produce a science instrument that is capable of probing the lunar surface up to a depth of 1 meter to extract the geotechnical properties of the lunar regolith, identifying the vertical and lateral concentrations of volatiles present.
NASA T-REXNASA Breakthrough Innovative and Gamechanging (BIG) Idea Challenge 2020 – "Tethered permanently shaded Region EXplorer (T-REX)", (power and communication delivery into PSR)
NASA Watts on the MoonNASA Watts on the Moon Centennial Challenge (Providing power to water extraction plant in PSR 3km from power plant) – "Wired Watts where-ever, whenever you want – W^5"
HOPLITEA modular robotic system that enables the field testing of ISRU technologies.
Facilities
IRGOA 3-axis autonomous gravity offloading device located within a lunar simulant chamber.