Empowering High School Students
HUNCH (High school students United with NASA to Create Hardware) is a NASA program that is managed by Voyager Space. As part of this program, high school students learn how to design and fabricate products for space. To date, the program has welcomed over 1,700 schools, engaging over 24,000 students across 46 states, and has flown over 3,000 items to the International Space Station.
The program has a number of focus areas, including hardware manufacturing (design and prototyping as well as actual manufacturing), software development, soft goods sewing, video and media development, and culinary/cooking programs. Fundamentally it works like an apprenticeship; the programs in the schools teach students these skills and then immediately implement them to produce flight hardware for space.
The Design and Prototyping HUNCH Program is a way for students of all skill levels to develop innovative solutions to problems posed by life on the International Space Station. Many of the projects are items personally requested by the International Space Station Crew to help ease living conditions aboard Station, giving students the opportunity to really make an impact on the lives of Astronauts. Other projects come from Flight Crew Systems and Operational groups at NASA that need more idea development.
Image Credit: NASA
HUNCH’s newest program has students work with NASA to build software applications for the International Space Station. Students work on project prompts sourced from crew feedback and subject matter experts to solve real needs for astronauts and the International Space Station.
Each project that the students work on is team based and while programming is a core part of software development, it is not the only component that makes a software product a success. Emphasis is placed on delivering working products at the end of the school year and having teams that focus on software development, design, quality assurance, and user testing. Solutions to these projects are intentionally open ended and meant to mirror real life software product development processes.
Examples this year include tracking items on the space station using IoT devices, building a mobile web application to allow an astronaut to have a personalized mission timeline, to software to help astronauts identify spacecraft parts using cutting edge technologies such as augmented reality.
Image Credit: NASA
Space Flight Equipment, one of HUNCH’s largest programs, allowing students to create high quality hardware items for the Space Station. HUNCH creates items from approved design projects to requested items from Crew Systems.
HUNCH developed items such as the Galley Table help with crew comfort as well as other items providing maintenance solutions that keep the Space Station running. HUNCH’s largest project includes Stowage Lockers of various sizes to hold experiments.
HUNCH Sewn Flight Articles, also known as Softgoods, is a program using fabric and other soft materials to create goods requested by different NASA centers as well as the Space Station Astronaut Crew. This can range from redesigning the crew pantry to creating kits for the Crew’s personal items. Softgoods provides a unique design opportunity using various materials to keep the crew not only safe but clean and comfortable aboard their stay.
The Astronaut Culinary Challenge develops food items for the Astronauts aboard the International Space Station. Each year there is a new theme given out to the schools where the students create new dishes taking into account food processing procedure and nutritional requirements so that their items will meet the standards of the NASA Johnson Space Center Food Lab.
Schools in the US and abroad bring dishes into their local NASA or partner center for a taste competition with different food industry professionals and personnel. After these preliminary culinary competitions, those with the highest scores from across the world are invited to Johnson Space Center for a final competition where their work will be judged by NASA Food Lab personnel, industry professionals, ISS program office, and Astronauts for quality, taste, their work on the research paper, and presentation video. The winning entree will be processed by the Johnson Space Center Food Lab and sent up to the station for the astronauts to enjoy.
The HUNCH video challenge serves as an avenue for media students to utilize their interest and knowledge of media production to learn more about NASA’s mission, and share their knowledge with others.
HUNCH and the Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE) is a way for students of all skill levels and grades to develop innovative, educational videos to inspire and educate the next generation of explorers about NASA’s missions and STEM careers needed to accomplish these missions.
As we look to the future of colonization on the moon and Mars, we must consider the physiological changes that happen to humans in space and find ways to mitigate those changes. This newest NASA HUNCH Program gives students a way to think outside the box and create solutions to some of those problems that face the next evolution of human spaceflight.
Students in the Flight Configuration program work with NASA HUNCH Mentors to bring their selected project designs and drawings up to NASA drafting and manufacturing standards. This includes producing completed flight drawings, documentation, and final 3D prints.
The Acme Thread Cleaning Kit is a toolkit that supports astronauts when they go on EVA’s – or spacewalks. This tool set is used to remove any debris or metal shavings from the threads that may cause an increase in torque when the new equipment is installed.
Image Credit: NASA
The HUNCH US Hygiene Kits were designed and developed by HUNCH students upon the request of the ISS Crew Office at the Johnson Space Center. These kits are also fabricated by HUNCH students. They are made up of eight unique and intricate subassemblies consisting of various pockets and special compartments attached to a carrier panel with Velcro strips. Arrangement of the pockets can be customized by each crew member for organization of their personal hygiene items, such as soap, shampoo, toothbrush, hair comb, etc. aboard the ISS. Each new crew member is assigned their own HUNCH US Hygiene Kit as part of their personal mission provisions when they launch to the ISS. Eighteen US Hygiene Kits were delivered to the ISS Cargo Mission Contract (CMC) on August 31, 2023, to support Crew Provisions inventory.
The Galley Table project was proposed by NASA to add a center piece the the “kitchen” on board the International Space Station to replace the historically used surface that was cobbled together by astronauts when the need first arose many years ago. The table had to be sturdy, easy to clean, collapsible, light weight, and meet all of NASA’s strict safety and material standards for flight hardware. Designed and machined by HUNCH, the table was launched into space in 2016, where it received a very warm welcome by the astronauts on the Space Station.
Astronauts use their feet to lock themselves in place while floating in microgravity to get their work done. However, they were experiencing a lot of discomfort and blistering on the top of their feet. HUNCH created crew footpads to help eliminate this problem. These shoe-like pads protect the top of the foot from pressure when utilizing railing to maintain location.