[ad_1]
For more than 50 years, NASA astronauts have relied on duct tape to fix everything from a lunar rover on the moon to an air leak aboard the International Space Station. So far, however, they haven’t had an easy way to distribute the adhesive.
Enter high school students from five different states who found the solution.
SpaceX Crew-1 Commander Mike Hopkins, a flight engineer on the space station’s Expedition 64 crew, recently demonstrated the HUNCH tape dispenser aboard the orbiting lab.
“I think this tape dispenser is going to find great use here on the International Space Station,” Hopkins said in recorded video showing the device in action.
Related: Artist imagines mock mission to Mars with duct tape in New York
HUNCH, or High School Students United with NASA to Create Material, is a nationwide program that challenges students to design and build equipment that is then launched and used aboard the space station. Now in its 18th year, HUNCH students have built lockers, handrails, various tools, and a kitchen table for the crew to eat and share meals. The program even developed some of the food items that were added to astronaut menus.
This last project solved a thorny problem for the station crew.
“One of the main things I love about it is that you can operate it with one hand. Here you often use your other hand to stabilize yourself,” Hopkins said.
Before the HUNCH dispenser, rolls of duct tape – also known as “gray tape” or “Mach 25 tape” – and high temperature Kapton tape were typically glued to the edges of work areas, on handrails or anywhere else. at hand. To cut the tape from the roll, the astronauts had to use scissors or, in a pinch, they tore it with their teeth.
While crew members could use out-of-the-box dispensers for the Scotch tape, the commercial solutions available for the larger duct and rolls of Kapton tape did not have a seat rail or another. connector type to be compatible with station systems.
“Very easily it goes over the guide rail and you can see it’s already locked in place,” Hopkins said of the HUNCH dispenser, as he mounted it on one of the walls at US Lab Destiney. .
“I can have several [types of] bands at the same time, so that’s just as good, ”he said.
The HUNCH tape dispenser was developed and built by students at Windsor High School in Windsor, Connecticut; Lakewood High School in Lakewood, Colorado; Cypress Woods High School in Cypress, Texas; Decatur High School in Decatur, Alabama; Clear Creek High School in League City, Texas; and Dade County High School in Trenton, Georgia.
The need for the tape dispenser highlights the many uses that tapes have on the station. Over 20 different adhesives are used on board the orbital complex, although duct tape and Kapton tape are the most popular. The bands are used for everyday activities, much like on Earth, but also to prevent objects from floating in the microgravity environment of space.
The Duct and Kapton bands have also played key roles in space emergencies. In April 1970, the Gray Ribbon was one of the tools needed to build a makeshift carbon dioxide air cleaner for the stranded Apollo 13 crew. Two years later, Apollo 17 astronauts Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt relied on duct tape to hold a map together as a replacement fender for their lunar rover on the moon.
More recently, astronauts have used Kapton tape to build and line up custom tools for use on spacewalks to repair broken hardware outside the space station. Duct tape was also used to temporarily repair a crack in a Russian module that was leaking air before a permanent solution could be designed and implemented this week.
In total, the HUNCH program transported over 800 items to the station which were built by 2,575 students from 277 participating high schools across the country.
“Congratulations to all the students with the HUNCH project,” Hopkins said. “You got him out of the park.”
Follow collectSPACE.com on Facebook and on Twitter at @collectSPACE. Copyright 2021 collectSPACE.com. All rights reserved.
[ad_2]
Source link