NASA has selected three projects from the Rhode Island School of Design's Space Design club for its development programmes, meaning the work could one day be tested in space.
A space-dust repeller, an augmented-reality headset and a wearable container for rock samples are among the project proposals chosen for the BIG Idea Challenge and other NASA programmes.
All of the projects were born from the Rhode Island School of Design's (RISD) Space Design club, which was formed in autumn 2020.
It succeeds the RSID Rover club, which was launched to compete in the annual NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge but had to disband because the work of building and racing vehicles as a team was not possible during the pandemic.
Instead, the RSID Space Design club came up with proposals that could be worked on remotely. RISD design to protect astronauts from space dust
The space dust project, by students from RSID along with Brown University, was one of seven proposals selected for the BIG Idea Challenge, which had more than 100 entries.
TEST-RAD has electrostatically charged fibres
Called TEST-RAD (Tufted Electrostatic Solution to Regolith Adhesion Dilemma), the technology is about protecting astronauts and their equipment from space dust, also known as regolith. These particles are similar in size to asbestos and can damage the lungs.
The project uses densely packed fibres that are electrostatically charged to repel the dust. The students originally planned to apply the fibres to space ...