A University of Canberra researcher, Dr Gordon Waddington, has placed Australia and the University firmly on the global space stage after delivering technology he and his team at UC developed to the NASA Johnson Space Centre (NASA JSC) in Houston, USA, this month.
Dr Waddington is a Professor of Physiotherapy at the University and led the team that designed a novel system to assesses the impact of weightlessness on an astronaut following spaceflight, and developed a sensory sock to counteract those effects and increase the astronaut’s movement.
Dr Waddington presented the system to the space giant on 4 April 2022 at the NASA Johnson Space Centre
“This represents an exciting stage in this project for our team at the University of Canberra. The Australian Space Agency-funded grant enabled us to fabricate and deliver new Australian-designed technology to the Human Sensorimotor Research Lab at the NASA JSC,” he said.
“We know that movement ability after long periods of space flight is severely reduced and these technologies will allow us to undertake the next exciting stage of the project.
“We will be working with staff at NASA JSC and assessing methods of increasing safety for astronauts when they need to move about immediately following the long trip to Mars.”
The project - VertiSense-Mitigation of Sensorimotor Effects of Simulated Weightlessness – was funded by the Australian Space Agency, and supported by Australian companies elmTEK and SRC Health.
The next stages of the project involve integration and piloting the systems within the human research program at NASA JSC later this year, which forms part of a comprehensive evaluation process.