NASA Grants $900K To College Of The Desert For Mars Research

PALM DESERT, CA — College of the Desert received a $900,000 grant from NASA to be used for research on future human exploration of Mars, campus officials announced Thursday.

COD is one of only two community colleges in the nation to receive the prestigious "M-Star Grant Award." The funding is part of more than $14 million that NASA has dedicated to 19 U.S. colleges and universities "to prepare a new generation of diverse students for careers in the nation's science, technology, engineering, and math workforce," according to COD.

The local award came after COD professors and a student collaborated on the grant application and submitted a winning project entitled, “A Penetrolyzer for Extracting Oxygen and Hydrogen from Mars Regolith.”

The project focuses on finding a way to make life on Mars sustainable.

Students and the entire community are invited to attend a presentation about the grant award during a one-hour event starting at 11 a.m. Nov. 3. It will be followed by 30 minutes for a meet-and-greet. The presentation will be held in the COD Math/Science Building, Room 250.

During the event, COD and collaborators from NASA-Jet Propulsion Laboratory will present how their partnership will lead to achieving NASA's goals toward future human planetary exploration, according to campus officials.

The event will also discuss how the grant award benefits current and future STEM students at COD.