UCF celebrated seven dynamic contributors to Central Florida’s robust space ecosystem with its 2026 SpaceU Awards, including three honorees from the UCF Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.
America’s Space University honored two students, three faculty, a Pegasus Partner, and a space company leader for advancing space development, discovery, exploration and engagement. The awards were part of the second UCF Space Week, which runs Oct. 25-30 and showcases the university’s impact across the space sector.
Tuesday’s SpaceU Awards ceremony at the Celeste Hotel drew more than 200 community leaders and supporters from UCF, industry and government. The event also spotlighted the inaugural UCF Space Ideation Challenge, a national competition showcasing practical, forward-looking ideas to strengthen U.S. leadership in space and accelerate the emerging space economy.
“Our SpaceU Award recipients embody the ingenuity and determination that have defined UCF from the start. They ask bold questions, take on difficult challenges, and pursue ideas that have the potential to change what we know, what we can do and where we can go’,’ said UCF President Alexander N. Cartwright. “Their achievements remind us that exploration is about more than reaching new frontiers — it is about advancing knowledge, creating opportunities and improving lives on Earth and beyond.”
UCF originated in 1963 to help supply talent and technology for Central Florida’s growing space program. Today, SpaceU has become a vital force for enhancing Florida’s vibrant space economy through excellence in research, innovation and workforce development — leading the nation in producing talent for the aerospace and defense industries.
Other Space Week events include the inaugural UCF Innovate Day, which highlights how university research translates into real-world applications; The Economist’s fourth-annual Space Economy Summit; the National Space Society’s Space Settlement Summit; and the SpaceU Symposium, featuring student, faculty and staff research. The week also includes a SpaceU Drone Show on Memory Mall and the 10th-annual Space Game against Baylor at Acrisure Bounce House Stadium.
The honorees from the department are:
Student Space Research Award
Noah Brockhoff, Junior, College of Engineering and Computer Science
Brockhoff’s research is helping to address the critical challenge of minimizing the effects of moon dust on spacecraft and landing sites. At UCF’s Exolith Lab, the mechanical engineering major spent 300 hours building a simulated lunar lander to study how lunar dust traveling at terminal velocity could damage spacecraft. NASA is partnering with UCF on the research and plans to use the findings, connecting Brockhoff’s work directly to the future of space exploration.
Student Space Innovator Award
Keanu Brayman, Senior, College of Engineering and Computer Science
Brayman, a mechanical engineering major, is making contributions to space innovations with commercial applications. As an intern at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, he has worked on trajectory optimization for the Human Landing System, additive manufacturing technology for lunar resource utilization and robotic in-space laser welding — a necessity for assembling large structures on the lunar surface. Brayman is also a researcher in UCF’s Astrodynamics, Space and Robotics Laboratory, a Goldwater Scholar, and an Astronaut Scholar.
Early Career Space Achievement Faculty Award
Paula do Vale Pereira, Assistant Professor of Aerospace Engineering, College of Engineering and Computer Science
do Vale Pereira develops approaches for exploring the hidden oceans of icy moons. She specializes in space systems, spacecraft engineering, and planetary exploration technologies for navigating some of the solar system’s most challenging environments. do Vale Pereira contributes to shaping the next decade of planetary exploration through NASA’s Decadal Astrobiology Research and Exploration Strategy and the Ocean Worlds Working Group. Her lab investigates spacecraft thermal performance, orbital dynamics, lunar surface power transmission, and innovative satellite structures.