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Dust-Free Lunar Landing Pads: UAH Students Test a Prototype To make lunar landings and takeoffs safer, a team from the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), led by Judy Schneider, is developing modular "vented" landing pads. On the Moon, the absence of an atmosphere causes dust to scatter for kilometers, potentially damaging equipment; furthermore, the water typically used for flame suppression systems on Earth is unavailable there. Over the summer, students conducted three rounds of hot-fire testing on a 3.65-meter-diameter prototype at the Propulsion Research Center. Channels integrated into the pad segments captured and redirected the exhaust, protecting both the landing pad itself and the simulated spacecraft. The concrete-based components—serving as an analog for lunar materials like sintered regolith, or "lunacrete"—were equipped with sensors to measure flow dynamics. The project is supported by NASA through the Artemis program and the Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program, in collaboration with Linc Research. The next phase involves a 6-meter-diameter pad to be tested at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, aimed at evaluating the technology’s scalability and its readiness for integration into actual lunar infrastructure.