Secor Strategies Sponsors & Helps Coordinate NASA Astronuat Glove Contest
Kennedy Space Center, Fla – November 19, 2009 -
Peter Homer of Southwest Harbor, Maine won $250,000 and Ted Southern of Brooklyn, NY won $100,000 at the 2009 Astronaut Glove Challenge. The competition was held at the historic Astronaut Hall of Fame in Titusville, Florida near NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. It was managed for NASA by Volanz Aerospace Inc., a non-profit space education organization based in Owings, Maryland which provides space science programs for researchers, educators and students. Secor Strategies, LLC was the commercial sponsor for the event. The Titusville-based company provides grant writing and program management services to universities, non-profits and small businesses.
(PICTURE) Contest winners Peter Homer and Ted Southern are congratulated by Robert Cabana – Kennedy Space Center Director, Doug Comstock – Director of NASA Innovative Partnerships Program, Andy Petro – Manager of the NASA Centennial Challenges Program, and Dave Makufka – NASA KSC IPP Manager. Also pictured are contest organizers, technical experts, volunteers, and sponsors.
The Astronaut Glove Challenge seeks innovative glove design concepts to reduce the effort needed to perform tasks during spacewalks. In this challenge, competitors demonstrated their glove design by performing a range of tasks with the glove in an evacuated chamber. The gloves were also tested to ensure that they would not leak. In order to qualify for a prize, the gloves had to meet all of the basic requirements and also exceed the flexibility of the current NASA spacesuit glove. For the 2009 Challenge, teams had to provide a complete glove, including the outer, thermal-micrometeoroid-protection layer and the inner, pressure-restraining layer. In, the 2007 competition, only the pressure-restraining layer was required.
The two competitors were tied in several categories but Peter Homer, who won $200,000 in the first Astronaut Glove Challenge in 2007, claimed first prize this time by outscoring his rival in joint-flexibility and in the pressure test. Ted Southern, who captured second place, also competed in 2007 but was not successful in his first attempt. According to Alan Hayes, Chairman and CEO of of Volanz Aerospace Inc., “Both competitors improved their designs significantly from 2007, but Ted’s progress was especially impressive.”
The designs presented in the competition were measured and evaluated by engineers from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and Johnson Space Center and NASA’s spacesuit-manufacturer, ILC Dover. “It is remarkable that two designers working on their own could create gloves that meet the requirements for spaceflight – a task that normally requires a large team of experts”, said engineer Kate Mitchell of the Johnson Space Center.
The Astronaut Glove Challenge is one of six Centennial Challenges managed by NASA’s Innovative Partnership Program, which provides the prize funds. This was the fourth consecutive Centennial Challenge event with prize winners and the program has awarded 3.65 million dollars this year. “Our challenges have been difficult, multi-year efforts and in many cases it has taken several years for competitors to perfect their designs. We are now seeing the results of their perseverance.” according to Andrew Petro, Centennial Challenges Program Manager.
