The first generation space laundry system
Industrial Design - In collaboration with NASA JSC
This is a portion of a larger industrial design project that was developed in collaboration with NASA Johnson Space Center. The goal of ALIS01 is to enable astronauts to wash their clothes in a micro-gravity environment taking into consideration the scarcity of resources in space, with the goal of improving hygiene as well as reducing the amount of waste that is generated during the supporting period of a space mission.
The user experience of this device had to be developed with the astronauts time limitations as a priority, thus this section features design and user research as well as UI solutions for a fast paced and extremely scheduled environment, the International Space Station.
Team: L. Talamas (Product Design) | R. Trevino (NASA Engineering Director)
A habitat in space...
As we pursue longer distance travel, future human space exploration missions will lengthen to years. Keeping crew healthy and comfortable through a sustainable solution will be necessary for the success of space missions.
Astronaut Ryan Kelly - NASA
Every four months hundreds of pounds of clothes are sent to the International Space Station along with supplies to maintain up to six astronauts. Each pound is estimated to cost $10,000, and after a few days of reuse, clothes are discarded as waste in order to keep better hygiene.
User research - A cycle of laundry on earth
By tracking the laundry experience through user journey maps on six participants I was able to see an inverse relationship between the time required for a certain task and the user’s level of satisfaction during the task.
* The size of the white dots on the time-line represent the duration each the task.
Insights:
Although there can be many engineering optimizations in a laundry system, a way to optimize the laundry process for the user can be by focusing on the organization of clothes..
The user’s ability to save time in the process increased the level of satisfaction during the experience
Understanding the user
A physical system was designed in collaboration with engineer Robert Trevino from NASA's Thermal Controls System's team. The below is a summary of what the system would do.
Feedback workshops with interactive mockups educated further design decisions during the development of the physical product.
Step-by-step task analysis helped me evaluate potential pain points when introducing a new procedure for space missions.
Other ID projects
