Nikol Koleva

Space Generation Advisory Council

This project explores methods to manage stress and anxiety in spaceflight. It leverages Resource Conservation Theory and evolutionary psychology to understand cognitive resource allocation in extreme environments. Research identifies many emotional challenges astronauts face, such as anxiety, stress and panic. By monitoring vital signs during a parabolic flight using an innovative technology called Astroskin, the research assesses the effectiveness of grounding techniques like meditation and visualization in reducing stress. The aim is to find strategies to enhance emotional resilience and improve mental health and performance in space missions.

Jagriti Luitel

Pisces Rising

Deborah Won’s weightless fashion design startup, Piscesrising, blends cutting-edge materials and designs that cater to the demands and challenges of the unique zero-gravity environment.

Inspired by the idea of expressing belonging and individuality beyond Earth through fashion, this endeavor explores the intersection of aesthetics and functionality of spacewear to envision a vibrant life for the future of space civilization. Flier Jagriti showcased a design that incorporates a red rhododendron, the national flower of Nepal.

Marques Redd & Mikael Owunna

Rainbow Serpent

Mikael Owunna and Marques Redd are the co-founders of Rainbow Serpent, a Black LGBTQ+ arts nonprofit. This project reimagines Owunna’s photographic image "The Flying African" in the context of microgravity. “The Flying African" draws on a tradition of stories that persist, especially along the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina, of enslaved Africans who escaped bondage by taking flight and returning to their African homelands. There are many hypotheses about the origin of this myth, but many point to the 1803 slave rebellion known as Igbo Landing on St. Simons Island in Georgia, where a group of enslaved Igbo people walked into a creek in order to drown themselves rather than live in enslavement. As they entered the water, they chanted, “The Water Spirit brought us, the Water Spirit will take us home.” 

With a central figure whose body is illuminated as the starry universe itself, "The Flying African" creates a powerful homage to its source myth through visually rendering ideas about the blackness of space, ocean depths, the womb, and the primordial origin from which all things emerge and return.

Kiran De Silva

Lodestar Space

ESA-backed startup Lodestar Space’s Senior Engineer Kiran De Silva flew with Project Inception, a successful pre-flight testing campaign designed to demonstrate Lodestar’s proprietary autonomous object tracking & inspection capability via their vacuum-rated arm, called TARS.

Alessandro Stabile

Magma Space

Startup Magma Space is developing a low-power magnetic reaction wheel to drastically reduce satellite vibrations and boost pointing accuracy, critical for high-res imaging, laser communication and national security. Founder Alessandro Stabile flew with a prototype of a single magnetically levitated wheel.

Matthew Thomas

Overview Energy

Matthew Thomas flew with DUST (Deployable Ultra-Stowable Truss), a demonstration of startup Overview Energy’s novel solar panel deployment system, Deployable Ultra-Stowable Truss (DUST). Matthew Isakowitz Fellow Halen Mattison assisted with DUST on the flight.

Hannah Weiss

@hanweiss

Stirling Research Group (University of Michigan)

As astronauts transition from microgravity to gravity-rich environments (e.g., the Moon or Mars), sensorimotor impairment may affect their ability to perform mission-critical tasks such as landing procedures, capsule egress, and early EVA. To ensure mission success and astronaut safety, it is essential to identify sensorimotor impairment during missions. The development of lightweight, space-conscious assessments for astronauts transitioning between gravity environments is crucial to the success of future exploration missions to inform crew readiness, rehabilitation protocols, and the development of sensorimotor countermeasures. An Augmented Reality (AR) standalone system may be a viable future spaceflight assessment tool with the benefit of embedded sensors and onboard computing. The primary aim of this research is to assess the performance of an adept user in a multidirectional tapping task while experiencing Martian, Lunar, microgravity, and macrogravity conditions. The objective is to understand how task execution differs across these diverse gravitational environments.