Jackrabbit in the spotlight—Allea Klauenberg / A story of trials, triumphs and determination

Allea Klauenberg long thought her career would be in engineering. As a child growing up on an acreage near Ogden, Iowa, 30 miles west of Ames, she played with Tinkertoys and Legos, not Barbies.

“I always knew I wanted to do engineering. I just didn’t know the focus,” Klauenberg, who choose mechanical because she was told it was the broadest field of engineering. So broad, it could take her into the field of aerospace and give her an opportunity to be a leader in South Dakota State University’s Space Trajectory project.

That team was one of six finalists that competed in NASA’s Break the Ice Lunar Challenge contest in Huntsville, Alabama, June 10-12.

Such a competition never entered Klauenberg’s dreams when she toured SDSU in her senior year at Ogden High School.

Although Iowa State was nearby, “SDSU was a better fit. I liked the smaller school. I wanted something new. I already knew Ames. SDSU was one of the first places we toured, and when we toured, it was, ‘Yeah, it fits,’” said Klauenberg, who graduated with a class of 48 students in 2019.

A rough start to college

However, her freshman year wasn’t a dream experience. She took the required classes, “tried robotics club and that wasn’t great fit” and then just before spring break got sent home along with all students due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Next school year students were back on campus, but some classes were online and that didn’t fit Klauenberg well either.

But, also in her sophomore year, she got an opportunity to participate in the Deep Space Food Challenge, a NASA Centennial Challenge.

The SDSU team envisioned a fully autonomous greenhouse where preplanted seeds would be watered and harvested for astronaut consumption. That idea didn’t fly with NASA, but it planted a seed in Klauenberg’s mind. 

“Being in that (contest) opened my eyes to NASA being a potential career. Then Letcher sent an email asking if I wanted to be a part of Break the Ice, and I said yes,” said Klauenberg, who has become so familiar with mechanical engineering associate professor Todd Letcher that no title is needed.

In simplest terms, Break the Ice teams were tasked with designing machines that could dig and transport icy lunar soil so the water could be extracted.

Welcome to Space Trajectory

Klauenberg joined the team in spring semester of her junior year (2022) and was in charge of batteries, working with the excavator and battery-swapping teams. “When I first joined in 2022, I was so timid and shy. There would be times I would never speak during a meeting. Being around all men was a part of it but also didn’t know a lot about it.

“At the beginning of senior design (fall 2022), it was me and a group of guys. They were a group of friends who already knew each other. By the end of the semester, I was much more outspoken.”

Also at the end of that semester, Dec. 14, 2022, NASA announced that SDSU was one of 15 finalists selected to build and test a full-size prototype of their concept.

In charge of energy efforts

Space Trajectory was Klauenberg’s senior design project, assigned to the energy team. “It was me and one other kid. I ended up designing and building the battery pack itself, the top half of the battery-swapping rover, the battery bay and the ramp system on the excavator for battery swapping and the charging station.”

“We always know that Allea’s work will be done well.  She works hard to perfect the design on the computer first, then makes sure that design becomes a reality,” Letcher said.

Klauenberg said, “The hardest part was figuring how to make all of those systems work together and how all the batteries could be transferred.”

The result was a rover that could drive the course and autonomously swap batteries with the excavator and return the dead battery for charging.

Letcher said, “We were the only team in the competition to attempt battery swapping with a separate rover—and we made it work. We used it for 15 days and proved that the system functioned. Allea’s design and construction was a success.”

Klauenberg selected the materials (primarily aluminum), while another student did the welding. “I enjoyed seeing my design go from a SolidWorks (computer) model to an actual rover and system,” noted Klauenberg, who said she was in the department shop every day … when I didn’t have class and probably 16- to 18-hour days during the summer.”

Foregoes job for grad school

In mid-April 2023, just a few weeks from graduation, she got a job offer from Renew Energy, a Sioux Falls wind turbine company.

Klauenberg debated that job and pursuing a master’s degree. “I had kind of been talking to Letcher about a master’s but hadn’t decided on anything. I was nervous I wouldn’t have been capable of a master’s degree.” She also was drawn to Space Trajectory. “There was a lot to be done, and I didn’t want to walk away from the project knowing the potential it had.”

That potential was realized in December 2023, when NASA selected Space Trajectory as one of six finalists for the $1 million grand prize in the Break the Ice finals. 

Battling odds and shorthanded

Getting to that point was a challenge of astronomical proportions. For starters, by June 2023 nearly every member of the Space Trajectory team had graduated and taken jobs. While the excavator and rovers had largely been built by then, a rigorous 15 days of the equipment testing remained. It all needed to be filmed and excavation data collected.

From the team’s 16 members, there remained ME students Carter Waggoner and Klauenberg and electrical engineering major Eric Derr as well as faculty members Letcher and Jason Sternhagen (electrical). 

“It was a relief when it was over, and it was a very proud moment,” Klauenberg said of the 15-day test, which began July 31 and included a summer downpour on Day 6.

Wrong time for rain

To call it a flood might not be meteorologically correct, but it felt like it to the Space Trajectory team.

The testing site was open ground at the L.G. Everist quarry on the southeast edge of Brookings. Strong winds blew in a torrential rain midday. The excavation area quickly filled with rain and runoff. 

“We were standing up on the lawn chairs. A river was flowing through our base station and into our excavation pit,” Klauenberg recalled. The first action was to secure the computers. “Then we had to back the excavator out of the trench because it was becoming submerged, and we had to dig trenches to keep the water moving.  


“Then we went home and slept.”   

15-day test: taxing and relaxing

Sleep was a cherished commodity during the test phase. Days began about 8:30 a.m. and would continue past midnight some days as the team attempted to meet the NASA specs of excavating 800 kilograms (1,760 pounds) of soft-grade concrete per day.  

The work coincided with a hot stretch of summer, and the only shade came from an open-sided tent that covered the laptop computers.

Klauenberg said there was serenity during the nights.

“Later in the night, after the sun had set, Jack (Hoffman), my fiancé, would come out and help. Amber (Letcher’ wife) would come out and help. You could hear coyotes yipping in the distance. It was very peaceful.”

An unexplained neurological challenge

Testing finished Aug. 14. School started one week later. Klauenberg was taking nine credits in the ME master’s program and working as a teacher’s assistant for Letcher, which involved grading papers for the senior and sophomore design classes as well as advising a couple senior design projects, one being Space Trajectory.

In early November, Klauenberg wasn’t feeling well, went to the doctor and tested positive for COVID-19. She went home with medicine and an five-day quarantine order.

On the last day of her quarantine, adversity showed up.

“I was sitting on couch and got twitches in my arms and legs. We were scared and went to ER that night. I got meds to calm it down, but it got worse and turned into tremors.”

Next was a three-night stay in Avera in Sioux Falls, where a myriad of tests revealed nothing. “The neurologist thought it was COVID related and would go away.” It didn’t. Klauenberg battled nervous twitches, tremors, limb weakness, memory issues and fatigue. No longer able to drive, she relied on Hoffman, fellow ME grad student Liam Murray and fellow Space Trajectory team member Nesrin Al Zawad to get her around.

Disorder slows, but doesn’t stop her

Klauenberg saw a movement specialist doing physical and occupational therapy in Sioux Falls, missing class once a week.

She used a walker from December through May and still uses it occasionally. She continued with her schooling and working with Space Trajectory. “I basically coped by working on Break the Ice. It (the illness) was hard. The shop has become a comfortable space. Something I enjoy working on.

“When working in the shop, I would have to put all the stuff on my walker. I got weighted gloves to help with typing and writing and eating. I had a stress ball in my hand so it wasn’t moving around all the time. I chewed gum so vocal ticks weren’t an issue. I did more classwork at home.”

Letcher said, “From the first time I met Allea, I could tell that nothing was going to stop her from accomplishing her goals. 

“Last summer, our 15-day test and the preparation up to that point was probably the most physically and mentally demanding time of my life. I can only assume it was the same for Allea and Carter too. But, we pushed through the difficulties and completed the mission. 

“This year, besides the muscle twitches, it was hard to tell anything was wrong because she doesn’t let anything stop her. I know that she always makes it happen.”

Mayo provides answers

In May, after finals were over, Klauenberg got into Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, where tests pinpointed the problem as functional neurological disorder. “It’s an issue with the wiring within the brain and the communication with brain and body.” COVID-19 may have triggered the reaction, but that can’t be certain, the Mayo doctor told Klauenberg.

“Being at Mayo and getting an official diagnosis was relieving,” she said. The reduced stress of not having classes has also helped symptoms improve, Klauenberg said.  

She goes back the first week of August for a week of personalized physical and occupational therapy.

While she did use the walker a couple times at the Break the Ice competition in Huntsville, Klauenberg is happy with the recent improvement and thankful she stuck with Space Trajectory through some personally trying months.

“I’m very glad I made that decision” to get a master’s degree. “I’m very glad I got to help us through the 15-day test and got us through Phase II, Level 3 (the finals).”

In the shop, she redesigned the battery bay and the ramp system. “It is much more efficient and lightweight than last year. It was gratifying to see how much better it worked. (It was) absolutely satisfying to be part of a multi-iteration system. I’m extremely grateful I got to work on it again. I would do it over in a heartbeat.”

Space journey not complete

Break the Ice is finished, but that is not the end of aerospace engineering in Brookings.

Space Trajectory has been awarded a NASA Small Business Innovation Research grant to do preliminary work on a static auger conveyance system that will be used to transport regolith on the moon and vertically to the top of a machine to be processed. The project team is Letcher, Murray, Klauenberg and Waggoner. 

The hope is that effort can prove the value of a larger Phase 2 grant and “turn Space Trajectory into a bustling space technology development company in Brookings,” Letcher said.

It’s a figurative moonshot and Klauenberg knows there will be boulders in the road, but if determination produces success, her odds are good.