FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences

Contact: Karen Ryba
Phone: 701-777-4761

March 21, 2005
North Dakota Space Grant Consortium Awarded

$100,000 Grant to Design Mars Planetary Suit

(Grand Forks, North Dakota) – A NASA Aerospace Workforce Development grant of $100,000 has been

awarded to the North Dakota Space Grant Consortium (NDSGC) to design and build a prototype Mars planetary suit. This will be a year-long project involving multiple universities and colleges around North Dakota that will culminate in the production of a prototype spacesuit in March 2006. This project evolved from a collaborative effort between NASA

EPSCoR (Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research), NASA Space Grant and the University of North Dakota Aerospace Foundation (UNDAF) to develop a focus on spacesuit and extravehicular activities research at the University of North Dakota (UND). The impact of this project is statewide and serves the goals of the Red River Valley Research Corridor.

The proposal was identified as one of the most outstanding submitted to NASA for the Workforce Development Program this year. Diane DeTroye, manager of NASA Space Grant, said in the letter of notification, “The panel gave high praise for this innovative, consortium-wide initiative.” Although 50 proposals were submitted by state consortia, only 32 were partially or fully funded. North Dakota's proposal ranked in the top three submitted to NASA Headquarters.

The purposes of this project are to develop a top-level design by college students for a planetary spacesuit for Mars exploration, to train students in space life support systems and to do this through a cooperative effort of teams located at the public two-year, public four-year and tribal colleges in the state. Shan de Silva, director of the NDSGC, said, “What can be more exciting than this! It gets students and colleges across North Dakota involved in cutting-edge research with an economic development potential.” College teams from around the state will address such issues as mobility, telecommunications, biomedical sensors, thermal control, dexterity (glove mobility), kinematics of walking on Mars, design of an enclosed life support system (ELSS), helmet design, power sources, etc.

Pablo de Leon of the Department of Space Studies at UND will be the project manager. Hamilton Sundstrand (which manufactures the Space Shuttle spacesuit) and the NASA Extravehicular Activities Office at Johnson Space Center will provide the technical assistance. de Leon said, “This innovative project supports the new NASA Vision by encouraging students to think about planetary exploration while providing extensive hands-on experience otherwise unavailable in this particular aspect of human space flight.”

Jennie Untener will be the systems manager, and Mark Williamson will be the engineering manager. Both are graduate students in the Department of Space Studies at UND.

The NDSGC is a NASA-sponsored program whose mission is the enhancement of NASA-related research and education infrastructure in North Dakota. Its offices are located in the Department of Space Studies at UND.

For further information please contact Shan de Silva at 701-777-3558 or 1-800-828-4274 or visit the web page at http://www.human.space.edu/