UW-Madison Team Wins NASA eXploration Habitat Academic Innovation Challenge
An interdisciplinary team of University of Wisconsin-Madison undergraduate students won the NASA eXploration Habitat Academic Innovation Challenge (X-Hab) with their innovative "Badger Exploration Loft (X-Loft). The competition charges university teams to design and rapidly develop inflatable, habitable spaces that NASA can integrate onto an existing demonstration laboratory.
Several UW-Madison units, including the departments of Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Physics, the School of Human Ecology, Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium, and the Space Science and Engineering Center (SSEC), as well as local and regional companies, provided financial and in-kind support for the project.
The Badger X-Loft prototype, designed by an interdisciplinary team of students studying engineering mechanics, mechanical engineering, textile and apparel design, and finance and economics, has won the NASA eXploration Habitat Academic Innovation Challenge.( Photo: courtesy Nicole Roth)
Fred Best, one of SSEC's Executive Directors, worked on the project in an advisory capacity and said of the student team: “What so impressed me about the team was that it really was a "team" in the truest sense of the word. When something needed to get done people stepped up, nobody passed the buck. When that happens consistently, by everyone on the team, it seems impossible things can get done. I also observed and appreciated the professionalism of the team. To a person everyone I worked with was courteous, on-time, prepared, eager to learn, and ready to dig out any information that wasn't readily available.”
The UW-Madison team deployed and displayed its prototype at the NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, on 20-24 June 2011. For its win, the team receives an additional $10,000 and several members will spend September in Arizona, where they will test their habitat as part of a simulated astronaut mission to an asteroid in the annual NASA Desert Research and Technology Studies (Desert-RATS) field test.
The Badger X-Loft prototype is approximately 13 feet tall and 16 feet in diameter. Perched atop the NASA habitat demonstration unit laboratory, the habitat can house four crew members for several days and includes a desk and chair for each person, several windows styled like a ship's portholes, and a second story "loft" with private sleeping quarters.
A time-lapse video shows the team setting up its habitat in the Engineering Centers Building on the UW-Madison campus. A UW Communications article about the UW-Madison team and its victory is available online.
