WISCONSIN (SPECTRUM NEWS)— Carthage College students work in West Texas with NASA to launch project on rocket.

Back in February, we brought you a story about Carthage College students making projects for NASA. Now, those students are advancing that work and have some exciting news.

NASA has granted $500,000 to the students to continue their work in their program through the school.

The project the students are working on in West Texas is a fuel gage prototype that works to measure fuel and be more cost efficient while traveling to space.

"We are really here to prep our experiment for launch and if all goes well, success means for us that our experiment launches and we get our data," Carthage College Professor, Kevin Crosby said.

Their prototype is getting ready to launch into space on the Blue Origin rocket. The device measures the amount of fuel inside with a noise that shows how much fuel is left.

Professor Kevin Crosby at Carthage College is leading these students in this program and says it's amazing to be a part of.

"What I love about this job is that we get to do both science and expose people to things that are literally out of this world. They have never had these types of experiences before," Crosby said.

One of the students who works on this prototype is Carthage College Junior, Taylor Peterson. This trip to Texas marks her third trip there to work on this project. However, this time she is hoping to see her project launch.

"Once you see it... Lift off it's very surreal and all that goes through our head is my experiment is in there and it's on right now," Carthage College Junior, Taylor Peterson said.

NASA has appreciated the work of the students from Carthage so much, they've granted the program half a million dollars to continue their work. The goal is to help NASA get back to the moon in 2024.

"That partnership is really allowing us to accelerate the development of our experiment and really demonstrate the fact that it works in a real space environment,” Crosby said.

"It's so fulfilling to know that they like our work and what we do and they want more of it. I don't know how to describe it. It's wonderful," Peterson said.