DOVER — The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has awarded Delaware State University a three-year $899,000 grant to contribute its engineering and optics expertise to the future lunar land rover mission on the moon, a news release said.

Dr. Mohammed Amir Khan, professor and director of the physics and engineering program, and Dr. Yuri Markushin, associate professor, are the principal investigator and co-PI, respectively, of the DSU project.

The researchers will design and develop infrared sensing and laser technology for installation on the lunar land rover that will enable the detection and correlation of water isotopes with the characteristics of the elemental composition of lunar rocks and dust.

“We are collaborating with the Goddard Space Center on this project,” Dr. Khan said.

“NASA wants to use the moon to see how humans can live outside of the earth’s environment. The detection of water isotopes is an important factor in that question.”

Dr. Khan added that DSU science students will be engaged in the different parts of the project, including assisting in the design of the opto-mechanics and electronics of the experiments with a laser prototype.

The grant to DSU is part of $14 million that NASA is investing in U.S. colleges and universities to grow their capacity to participate in critical spaceflight research and prepare a new generation of diverse students for careers in the nation’s science, technology, engineering and math workforce.

DSU has contributed to NASA’s space program in the past. For several years, Dr. Noureddine Melikechi, a former DSU professor of physics, and Dr. Alissa Mezzacappa, then a second-year optics Ph.D. student, played a critical role in the development of the ChemCam technology used on NASA’s Curiosity rover which landed on Mars in 2012 and explored that planet’s surface.