Kris Zacny

Recognized under Tier 2 — In-Situ Resource Utilization, Kris Zacny has made highly practical contributions to extraterrestrial drilling, excavation, and sample acquisition hardware. As VP of Exploration Technology at Honeybee Robotics, Zacny has led the development of numerous flight-proven and prototype systems for penetrating, drilling, and handling planetary regolith across a wide range of environments — from the Moon to Mars to asteroids. The ability to drill into and extract subsurface materials on Mars — whether for water ice, minerals, or other resources — is a foundational capability for ISRU-based colonization, and the hardware Zacny's team has developed and tested is directly on that critical path.