MASSACHUSETTS – A team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have sent samples of various ‘high-tech’ fabrics into space in order to better understand how such fabrics survive in this harsh climate.
The findings, which will be assimilated in a year’s time when the fabrics are retrieved, will be used to better develop intuitive materials that could one day be used in spacesuits.
Speaking with MIT News, graduate student Juliana Cherston of the Institute’s Media Lab, said: “We are leveraging the space environment to complement our important ground-testing efforts. Our focus is on baselining their resiliency to the space environment. In one year, these samples will return to Earth for post-flight analysis. We'll be able to measure any erosion from atomic oxygen, discolouration from UV radiation, and any changes to fibre sensor performance after one year of thermal cycling.”
