College Students Design Interior of Single Person Spacecraft

College Students Compete for Design of Single-Person Spacecraft Interior Winners Selected in Competition for the Internal Design of a Single-Person Spacecraft

University students were invited to design the interior of a Single-Person Spacecraft (SPS) and today the winners were announced: The WHISPS Team, from the Florida Institute of Technology (FIT) School of Human-Centered Design, Innovation, and Art and Brett Montoya & Canaan Martin from the University of Houston (UH) were announced as the winners of the competition today. Brett, a Masters Student in Space Architecture at UH, said, “Despite the fact that the competition focused on the interior, it forced me to consider the craft as a whole; the sum of its parts. In order to map the layout, I had to understand the control requirements for each system. As a result, my understanding of spacecraft systems has grown immensely, and I have Genesis Engineering to thank for that.”

Genesis Engineering Solutions (GES) in Lanham, MD sponsored the three month competition as a way to integrate student creativity into the development of their Single-Person Spacecraft. “We didn’t know what to expect and now we have an excess of great ideas to choose from.” Robert Rashford, GES President & CEO.

The SPS includes an inner pressure vessel for shirtsleeve (normal clothing) operations and an outer unpressurized cylinder for micrometeoroid/orbital debris (MMOD) and impact protection. Subsystems are packaged in the space between and in the overhead crown leaving the interior open for control, displays and other outfitting. An SPS astronaut will have rapid access to the work site to repair the aging International Space Station, or to an asteroid for sample collection.