I'm Richard D. Dell Jr., the STELLAR Project Manager. I report to the co-directors of Team STELLAR and I am on loan from the Advanced Vehicle Research Center for this project [ www.avrc.com ].

Several members of the Team STELLAR Core team met this morning to cover a number of topics that could not wait until next week's meeting. Several interesting issues were addressed and resolved. Here are a few highlights, though much of what is discussed had to be scrubbed for proprietary information.

Dr. William Edmonson was able to join us at this meeting. William is a long time friend and associate. He has been busy laying groundwork for joint NASA/NCSU activities and co-directing ASTREC (Advanced Space Technologies Research & Engineering Center), an NSF IUCRC (National Science Foundation Industry/University Cooperative Research Centers ) that my own organization, the Advanced Vehicle Research Center, is a member of. One of the long range goals for STELLAR as well as the non-profit Advanced Aerospace Resource Center is to support space freight and other programs that will address viable commercial opportunities in Lunar and Martian habitation requirements, both for NASA and corporate interests. Thus, William is a key member of the STELLAR team.

Dr. Andre Mazzoleni of NCSU MAE has deployed David Padgett to run the student rover design grad student sub-team, and David was able to give us a briefing today on where the NCSU grad student designs currently stands. The NCSU students are now working on new conceptual designs for the next generation of STELLAR rover. The video on the Team STELLAR homepage reflects the initial design based on requirements gathered for a single large rover with multiple work tasks. This original design, with some additional modifications, will likely be deployed for another commercial project involving follow-on programs we expect to deploy on the Moon after the GLXP competition is complete and our own STELLAR surveys and assessments are finished. The STELLAR Core team co-directors have made a decision to refocus the next generation of design to offer multiple smaller lighter weight rovers that will meet only the GLXP competition requirements, and I'm very comfortable in moving some of our expected requirements to other commercial rover missions now on the drawing board. I expect to keep Gordon, one of our key student rover designers, busy for some time.

Team STELLAR will keep the next generation of rover designs tightly focused on achieving the GLXP baseline requirements for the prize.

From the perspective of David, Gordon, William and all the other members of the NCSU student team, this change in requirements offered an excellent opportunity for them to deal with real-world engineering challenges, and the accompanying emotional ups and downs of early stage mission planning in the commercial world. Engineering is often seen as a cold and calculating discipline that is disconnected from emotions, but this experience has demonstrated the powerful human feelings that accompany passion-driven work. Our hats are off to the NCSU student team for what they've already accomplished, and what they are accomplishing now.

Next week we'll likely get some insight into how Team STELLAR is looking to engage other regional Universities into the STELLAR mission.

-Richard