As part of NASA’s Micro-g Neutral Bouyancy Experiment Design Teams (Micro-g NExT), undergraduate students from U.S. universities have been competing for the opportunity to present a tool or device to the space agency. If NASA likes the idea enough, the students get invited to Johnson Space Center in Houston for onsite testing between June 1 and 3. One Texas school is among the universities invited.
A team of six engineering students at the University of Texas at Dallas will head down to Houston as part of the competition. Naming their team Laika after the first living creature to orbit Earth, the UT Dallas students are redesigning the handle of the tool cart astronauts use while on the moon.
UT Dallas is joining teams from:
The teams had the opportunity to design either the tool cart handle or a device to stow tools. The current tool cart’s handle isn’t ergonomic, which provides a challenge for astronauts, especially if they’re dealing with lunar dust that could potentially jam things up.
Upon their visit to Johnson Space Center, the engineering students will test their prototype in a microgravity environment inside the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory. That’s an indoor swimming pool. Divers will test the tool with the UT Dallas students providing direction.
There is no monetary award for winning the competition, but NASA may use the tool, or even aspects of it, in the future.
This isn’t the first time UT-Dallas has sent a student team to the Johnson Space Center. In 2024 a team of students competed in Micro-g NExT to develop an AI system designed to help in search-and-rescue efforts.