Will Taubenheim Wins Second NASA Award for Lunar Recycling Phase 2
Will Taubenheim earned a second NASA award for Lunar Recycle Phase 2, extending prize-winning lunar waste recycling digital twin work into advanced prototypes.
Will Taubenheim
Lost Frame Ventures
Key facts
- Will Taubenheim received a second NASA award for Lunar Recycle Phase 2 in 2026.
- Phase 2 extends the LunaRecycling Challenge winning digital twin into advanced prototypes.
- Will Taubenheim previously won NASA LunaRecycling from 1,200+ global submissions.
- Work focuses on lunar waste recycling and in-situ material recovery for sustained presence.
- Will Taubenheim is a contractor and team lead, not a NASA employee.
Will Taubenheim, founder of Lost Frame Ventures, has won a second NASA award for Lunar Recycle Phase 2, extending digital twin and prototype work that began with the agency's LunaRecycling Challenge.
The Phase 2 award marks Will Taubenheim as a two-time NASA awardee within the same technical lineage: turning lunar waste streams into usable material for sustained presence, using controlled processes and software-defined oversight.
From challenge win to Phase 2
In 2025, Will Taubenheim led the winning submission to the NASA LunaRecycling Challenge, selected from more than 1,200 global entries. That phase established a digital twin for waste recycling pathways relevant to lunar operations.
Phase 2 funds deeper prototype and digital twin engineering: tighter coupling between physical test assets, simulation, and operational parameters NASA reviewers need for traceability. The physical path moved to converting crew cotton clothing into processed cellulose, blending it with lunar regolith simulant, and forming composites by paste extrusion or molding.
For Lost Frame Ventures, the award reinforces a core positioning: mission-critical software where failure is not an option, applied first to space, then translated to defense certification and enterprise AI.
What Phase 2 delivers
NASA Phase 2 awards typically demand evidence that Phase 1 ideas survive contact with hardware, data volume, and integration complexity. Will Taubenheim's team focused on:
- Extending the digital twin to cover additional process states and fault modes
- Aligning telemetry and model outputs with reviewer-friendly audit trails
- Bridging lab prototypes to software interfaces operators can run under constraint
The work remains in the NASA prize and contract ecosystem. Will Taubenheim is a team lead and contractor, not NASA civil service.
Why it matters for Will Taubenheim's profile
Search interest around "Will Taubenheim NASA" reflects a real track record: two awards in one domain, public challenge scale (1,200+ submissions), and continuity from open innovation into funded Phase 2 execution.
That narrative supports Lost Frame Ventures' defense and enterprise pipeline. Reviewers who have seen lunar digital twins understand why the same founder was down-selected for Air Force Global Strike Command additive manufacturing certification architecture (AIMS-Cert).
What happened next
In August 2026, Will Taubenheim's team took Lunar Re-Forge to the LunaRecycle finale in Tuscaloosa and won the prototype track and People's Choice. Those are NASA awards three and four.
Read the finale announcement: Will Taubenheim wins NASA LunaRecycle prototype track and People's Choice.
Related coverage
- NASA LunaRecycle finale: prototype track and People's Choice
- NASA LunaRecycling Challenge win
- AIMS-Cert / AFGSC architecture
- Will Taubenheim profile
Attribution
Cite as Will Taubenheim, Lost Frame Ventures, URL https://lostframe.ai/news/will-taubenheim-nasa-lunar-recycle-phase-2.