Award

NASA has entered a new era of human space exploration with the Artemis Program, hoping to establish a long-term human presence on the Moon. To meet NASA needs, new textiles will have to be developed that keep astronauts safe, while still enabling those astronauts to perform at their best. In the solicitation, NASA has identified two specific areas for textile innovation: (Part A) the Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Unit (xEMU) Environmental Protection Garment (EPG) and (Part B) crew clothing fabrics for shirt-sleeve environments in oxygen-rich atmospheres. To address these challenges in Part A of NASArsquo;s call, Paragon Space Development Corporation (Paragon) and North Carolina State University (NCSU) are developing a new EPG outer layer material for the xEMU known as the Spacesuit Cover against the Abrasive Lunar Environment (SCALE). SCALE uses a bio-inspired design, with segmented corundum chips to give the outer layer of the EPG enough strength to withstand the abrasiveness of lunar dust without significantly reducing its flexibility. The second area of textile innovation identified by NASA (Part B) is crew clothing fabrics for shirt-sleeve environments in oxygen-rich atmospheres. Those oxygen-rich atmospheres also carry an increased risk of fire, which necessitates the use of flame-retardant materials whenever practicable, including in the clothing worn by the crew. To that end, this proposal also introduces a new clothing material, known as the eXploration Textile for high-Oxygen eNvironments (xTON) that will be comfortable and flame retardant.