MIT’s CERBERUZ Team Wins NASA LunaRecycle Challenge
In a breakthrough for sustainable lunar habitation, the MIT Composites for Extraterrestrial Recycling By Engineering the Reuse and Upcycling of Zotek (CERBERUZ) team captured first-place honors in both the Prototype and Digital Twin tracks of NASA’s LunaRecycle Challenge. Their system, anchored by an injection-molding machine nicknamed PERSEPHONE, transforms packaging waste and other non-biological debris into composite feedstock that can be molded into spare parts and tools on a future Moon base.
MIT’s CERBERUZ team turned trash into building material, proving that a compact, electricity-driven recycling line can operate without water or hazardous chemicals, and paired the hardware with a digital twin called DEIMOS to predict part quality before a single gram is printed on the lunar surface.
Why Lunar Waste Recycling Matters
Establishing a permanent outpost on the Moon will demand a constant flow of supplies—food, scientific equipment, habitat modules, and the packaging that protects them during the journey from Earth. Every kilogram launched costs thousands of dollars, and the cumulative mass of cardboard, polymer films, and foam insulation would quickly become a “mountain of waste” if left unmanaged. Moreover, the harsh lunar environment offers no natural landfill; bulky debris would impede operations and pose a fire hazard.
George Lordos, a research scientist in MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the lead advisor for the CERBERUZ team, emphasized that “recycling waste materials into such parts can help reduce materials needed to be launched from Earth.” By converting waste into a versatile composite feedstock, the team addresses two critical constraints: launch cost and on-site material availability.
Technical Overview of the CERBERUZ System
The CERBERUZ process is deliberately simple yet robust enough for a remote, resource-limited environment. It follows three core steps:
- Separation: Non-biological waste is sorted into two streams—thermoplastics and everything else.
- Grinding and Mixing: All items are pulverized into a fine powder, then blended into a homogeneous mixture.
- Injection Molding: The powder load is fed into PERSEPHONE, where thermoplastics melt while the remaining particles remain suspended, creating a composite that can be injected into molds for part fabrication.
A distinctive challenge tackled by the team is the handling of Zotek F30, a closed-cell thermoset foam widely used for aerospace packaging. Traditional recycling routes for mixed thermoplastic-thermoset blends do not exist, even on Earth. CERBERUZ repurposes Zotek as a reinforcing filler within the molten plastic matrix, turning a lightweight, otherwise unusable material into a strength-enhancing component of the final part.
José Soto, the graduate student leading pre-processing, described the logistical absurdity of Zotek: “We had big shipments of Zotek coming in, and one person can carry them on their head like it’s nothing. The box is the size of a person.” By integrating this foam into the composite, the system not only reduces waste volume but also extracts functional value from an otherwise inert substance.
Design for the Moon: Constraints and Solutions
Operating far from Earth imposes strict limits on power, water, and consumables. The CERBERUZ approach deliberately avoids water-intensive processes such as hydro-mechanical separation and eliminates chemical depolymerization, which would generate secondary waste streams. All steps are powered electrically, a realistic assumption given the likely presence of solar arrays or nuclear generators at a lunar base.
Lanie McKinney, the team lead, explained the design philosophy: “We set out to build something that would actually make sense on the moon, not just in a lab. That means no water and no chemicals you can’t replace. Every design choice we made was driven by those constraints.” The result is a compact, closed-loop system that can ingest a wide variety of feedstocks and output a broad catalog of components, rather than a single-purpose recycler.
Digital Twin – DEIMOS
Beyond the physical hardware, the team delivered a sophisticated digital twin named DEIMOS (Digital Environment for Intelligent Modeling of Operational Systems). By collecting sensor data during real-world production runs, DEIMOS builds predictive models of how different material blends and part geometries will behave during molding. The twin forecasts critical quality metrics such as mold fill, warpage, and shrinkage risk, enabling astronauts to evaluate a part’s performance before committing scarce energy and material resources.
This capability aligns with NASA’s broader vision of “digital twins” for space habitats, where virtual replicas of hardware can be used for troubleshooting, maintenance planning, and design iteration without leaving the safety of the habitat.
Team Composition and Institutional Support
The CERBERUZ effort grew out of the MIT Space Resources Workshop, a co-curricular program founded in 2017 that brings together students passionate about in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) for lunar and Martian exploration. The project assembled undergraduates and graduates from four MIT departments—Aeronautics and Astronautics, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Materials Science and Engineering.
Advisors included former NASA astronaut Professor Jeffrey Hoffman and research scientist George Lordos. Lordos praised the team’s leadership, noting that “Lanie McKinney has been an outstanding team lead, and the co-leads — Palak Patel on manufacturing and materials characterization, Lilly Etzenbach on the digital twin, and José Soto on pre-processing — have each built and managed subteams doing cutting-edge research in lunar sustainability.”
Competition Timeline and Funding
The LunaRecycle Challenge is part of NASA’s Centennial Challenges series, which solicits innovative solutions for deep-space sustainability. CERBERUZ entered the competition in Phase 1 (2025), progressed through Phase 2, and demonstrated a working prototype in the summer of 2026. Over the course of the challenge the team earned $925,000 in prize money, a sum they intend to reinvest in the Space Resources Works initiative, a follow-on effort to further mature lunar recycling technologies.
Implications for Industry 4.0 and the Fourth Industrial Revolution
The CERBERUZ system embodies several core tenets of Industry 4.0: distributed manufacturing, data-driven optimization, and circular material flows. By coupling a compact, additive-manufacturing-style process with a digital twin, the team demonstrates how edge-computing and real-time analytics can enable autonomous, on-site production in extreme environments. This aligns with the broader trend of “smart manufacturing” where factories become self-optimizing ecosystems, reducing waste and inventory overhead.
On Earth, the technology could be adapted for remote or disaster-struck locations where supply chains are disrupted. The ability to upcycle mixed plastic-foam waste into functional components without water or hazardous chemicals offers a compelling pathway toward more sustainable, low-impact manufacturing in off-grid communities.
Future Directions and Remaining Challenges
While the prototype proves the concept, several engineering hurdles remain before deployment on a lunar base:
- Scalability: Demonstrating consistent part quality at higher production rates.
- Energy Efficiency: Optimizing the electrical load of grinding, mixing, and molding to match realistic lunar power budgets.
- Material Diversity: Expanding the feedstock palette beyond the current thermoplastic/foam blend to include metals or advanced composites.
- Reliability: Ensuring long-term operation in a vacuum, with extreme temperature cycles and abrasive lunar dust.
Addressing these issues will likely involve iterative testing in lunar analog environments, such as the NASA Johnson Space Center’s Lunar Regolith Simulant Lab or the ESA’s Moon Village concept testbeds.
FAQ
What is the LunaRecycle Challenge?
It is a NASA Centennial Challenge that asks participants to design systems that can reuse, recycle, or upcycle waste generated during long-duration lunar missions, with the goal of improving mission sustainability.
What does the acronym CERBERUZ stand for?
Composites for Extraterrestrial Recycling By Engineering the Reuse and Upcycling of Zotek.
How does the PERSEPHONE machine work?
It grinds waste into powder, mixes thermoplastics with other materials, melts the plastics while suspending the remaining particles, and injects the composite into molds to create parts.
Why is Zotek F30 difficult to recycle?
Zotek is a closed-cell thermoset foam that does not have established recycling pathways; its lightweight nature also requires large volumes to achieve a useful mass.
What is DEIMOS?
DEIMOS (Digital Environment for Intelligent Modeling of Operational Systems) is a digital twin that models the injection-molding process, predicting outcomes like warpage and shrinkage before part production.
How much prize money did the team receive?
The CERBERUZ team earned $925,000 over the course of the competition.
Will the technology be used on Earth?
The challenge encouraged solutions that could have terrestrial applications, and the team’s water-free, chemical-free process is potentially adaptable for remote or off-grid manufacturing scenarios.
Conclusion
The MIT CERBERUZ team’s dual triumph in NASA’s LunaRecycle Challenge showcases a practical pathway to close the material loop on the Moon. By marrying a low-resource injection-molding system with a predictive digital twin, the project not only cuts launch costs but also advances the circular-economy principles at the heart of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. As humanity prepares for a sustained presence beyond Earth, such innovations will be essential to turning the Moon from a waste dump into a self-sustaining outpost.
Source: MIT News
