The ASTRA Rover Team from the Space Hardware Club at UAH needs your help!

ASTRA is a team of over 40 students that work year-round to design, build, and operate a Mars simulation rover to compete against over 100 international teams in the University Rover Challenge (URC). Each student gains invaluable experience in advanced design and manufacturing such as CNC machining, carbon fiber composites, embedded and web-based programming, PCB design, and much more. These experiences give students a leg up when entering the industry following graduation, with most even securing internships at companies such as Leidos, Northrop Grumman, SpaceX, and more early into their college career.

This is the team's fourth consecutive year competing in URC, with a strong history of success and accomplishment, having placed 6th our first year, 16th our second year (after a trailer break-in in Kansas City where we lost over $10,000 in equipment), and 8th place last year out of over 100 teams.

This year the team is working hard to build a competition-winning rover, emphasizing the importance of early prototyping and testing. We are well on track to being the winning team this year, having designed one of the most advanced and reliable systems amongst the competition, and are gearing up to compete again this year from May 28th-May 31st.

It has been tradition that students participating in the team and those attending competition get to do so without any financial burden. We have successfully accomplished this in the past, but this year we must ask for your help. Due to budget constraints and timing, the team is currently struggling to be able to take 10 individuals to competition, which is less than 1/4 of the team's full size of over 40 hard working students.

Our predicted expenses include $5,000 for Lodging in Utah, $2,000 in fuel costs and $6,000 in vehicle rental costs. Any help to pay for these goals goes a long way to getting more people to Utah.

It is with this in mind that we ask for your help in getting us to competition. The more funding we can secure, the more food and lodging we can afford and the more people we can bring. We thank you for any help you may be able to offer, and look forward to sharing our success with you in the coming months!