NMSU engineering professor receives NASA MUREP Space Technology Artemis Research Implementation grant

August 9, 2021, Sierra County, NM- A new grant at New Mexico State University will help foster a research capacity at Minority Serving Institutions and be more competitive for research funding. Douglas Cortes, NMSU civil engineering associate professor, has received a two-year, nearly $500,000 grant from NASA’s Minority University Research and Education Project (MUREP). His project, titled MUREP Advancing Regolith-related Technologies and Education or MARTE, aims to meet the critical needs facing many Minority Serving Institution’s research and educational efforts in three key areas of importance to NASA: access to reliable and affordable regolith simulants, which are commercially available mixtures that mimic lunar soil, along with testing facilities that simulate relevant environmental conditions and analog testing sites.