NASA announces winning concepts

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has announced the winners of its Space Suit Textile Testing Challenge, managed for NASA by NineSigma and launched in October 2015 under the umbrella of the NASA Tournament Lab. The competition yielded innovative concepts for spacesuit testing that will be applicable on future space exploration missions, including the agency’s journey to Mars.

The Space Suit Textile Testing Challenge offered three prizes of $5,000 for winning ideas on how to test the outer protective layer of spacesuit material for performance in different kinds of planetary environments. Winners are:

• Ahilan Anantha Krishnan, “Evaluating Space Suit Textile Abrasion in Planetary Environments”
• Himel Barua, Thomas L. Collins, Riniah Foor, Evan Hess, Joey Stavale, Christopher Daniels, Heather Oravec, Janice Mather and M.J. Braun, “Cylindrical Abrasion Method”
• John Holler, “Point-of-Failure Based System Using High Velocity Abrasives”

NASA’s Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation was established with support from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to assist NASA and other federal agencies in using new tools—such as challenges—to solve tough, mission-critical problems. The center launches challenges under the umbrella of the NASA Tournament Lab and offers a variety of open innovation platforms that engage the crowd-sourcing community in challenges to create the most innovative, efficient and optimal solutions for specific, real-world challenges.