American innovation firm NineSigma will run two challenges for Nasa tournament lab to investigate the potential for exploration, construction and human habitation in space.
The challenges include testing space suit textiles and in-situ materials.
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NineSigma will run the space suit textile testing challenge with the relevant advanced project team, and the in-situ materials segment will be carried out with the Kennedy Space Center and Swamp Works.
The space suit textile testing programme was initiated in October with the aim of developing standard test methodologies for assessing the wear performance of environmental protection garment (EPG) textiles during planetary exploration.
Space suits have multi-layered protection to shield voyagers from adverse environments, therefore the outer layer must be suitable for human exploration activities, but also expand in response to different types of dirt in planetary environments such as on Mars or large asteroids.
Three prizes of $5,000 will be awarded to these winners.
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By GlobalDataThe in-situ challenge requires applicants to find solutions for using surface-based materials, such as regolith (crushed basalt rock), for earth and space fabrication and construction applications.
This competition has a first-place prize of $10,000 and two second-place awards of $2,500.
NineSigma CEO Andy Zynga said: "NineSigma is passionate about creating transformational breakthroughs, and we are proud to partner with the Nasa tournament lab to find innovations that will reshape what we see as possible today in the world of space exploration and habitation."
Use of native materials such as in-situ regolith utilisation (ISRU) is expected to reduce the need for materials to be shipped from Earth, and enable greater payload mass to be used for habitats, structural systems, life support systems, science equipment and living provisions.
It is hoped that technology and methodology advancements will support extraterrestrial environment exploration and lead to more affordable and feasible space pioneering.
NineSigma is hosting the challenges via innovation community NineSights and the Nasa tournament lab.
In 2011, Nasa and Harvard University established the tournament lab to hold competitions within the Appirio-TopCoder community to create the best computer code and algorithmic solutions for Nasa systems.
