NASA opened the competition to engage students to help enhance functionality on the Environmental Control Life Support System (ECLSS) within the Human Lander for future Artemis missions.
Meghan Cephus (PhD student, the team leader), Ezekiel Anguiano (MS student), and Sergio Cantu (undergraduate student) with the Department of Mechanical Engineering submitted a proposal in March to participate in NASA’s Human Lander Challenge 2026 (HuLC) and were selected as one of 12 finalist teams to compete in Huntsville, AL at the end of June 2026.
Their project “Acoustic Metamaterial Composite Panel (AMP) for Spacecraft Noise Suppression” won the Best Prototype Award.
Noise suppression was one of the four topic areas NASA sought proposals from students to address. “Until this point, NASA’s primary goal has been to make sure the human lander works and that people survive,” Cephus, the TTU team leader explains. “Now, they are turning their attention to improving quality of life for people on the mission. When it comes to dealing with the noise that the lander produces, NASA’s current solution is for the people to wear ear plugs.”
This is Cephus’ fourth time competing in a NASA challenge, and her faculty advisor, Dr. Jingfei Liu was confident in her ability to lead the team.
This year’s NASA focus was of particular interest to Liu, who began studying the properties of metamaterials over a dozen years ago while he was completing his first doctorate degree in physical acoustics in France.
Metamaterials are engineered materials formed when shapes are arranged in repeating patterns. This internal structure is designed in a way to accomplish a desired outcome on specific environmental conditions.
“One feature of acoustic metamaterial is something called band gap, which is the range of frequencies for which the material causes energy to dissipate,” Liu explains. “Over the years, I have watched for real-world applications for this use of metamaterials. When this HuLC proposal opened, I was excited for our team to pursue the application of metamaterials to this problem.”
Liu also recruited Anguiano and Cantu to the team. For Cantu, a senior mechanical engineering student who graduates in December 2026, the HuLC provided him with valuable research experience.
“The most exciting part for me was that it was my first time to participate in a national competition and to present in front of a panel of NASA judges,” says Cantu.
Anguiano agrees, “Presenting our project to NASA and getting their feedback was a great experience, but the opportunity to network and get their career advice and industry insight was really beneficial.”
Finalist teams invited to the HuLC in Huntsville were awarded $9,000 to complete their project for the final phase of competition in June.
For the Texas Tech team, that invitation launched an in-depth process that included running mathematical simulations, designing and building an impedance tube from scratch, 3D printing the metamaterial insert that would be flush mounted to the air duct, and conducting experiments to test the viability of their proposed solution.
“We chose the air duct for our project focus,” says Cantu, “because it is one of the major noise generators on the landing craft.”
In their prototype design, the metamaterial replaces the honeycomb core in the traditional sandwich composite panel. The metamaterial acts as a resonator that catches the sound and applies it to a thin neoprene panel layer backed by an aluminum plate that absorbs the resonated frequency of the sound.
Not only did the team build the prototype, they also performed two different tests—one, using the impedance tube to find the properties of the metamaterial as an acoustic dampener and two, conducting a grazing flow test to determine how much sound was dampened in a real-world environment.
After a successful competition, Liu’s student team is back in the lab.
“Now that we’ve received feedback from NASA,” says Cephus, “we are coming back to the lab to modify the impedance tube for more precise quality testing and then we will evaluate other metamaterials for better performance.”
The student team would like to thank Roy Mullins, Jesus Salazar, Al Rosendo, and David Myers in the Advanced Prototype and Manufacturing Facility for their assistance.