NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

The X-Hab loft built by the University of Wisconsin-Madison team is lifted and moved to the Habitat Demonstration Unit (HDU). UW-Madison, the third of three finalist teams in the first annual X-Hab Academic Innovation Challenge, demonstrated their loft for judges at NASA's Johnson Space Center during the week of June 20-24, 2011 and was announced as the winner of the challenge on July 1, 2011.

The team will now take its inflatable space loft to NASA's annual Desert Research and Technology Studies (Desert RATS) field test in Arizona in September. It will be tested as part of a simulated astronaut mission to an asteroid. According to the judges, the 14-member University of Wisconsin team's design held promise for habitability and application to the Desert RATS mission simulation and was ready for field use because it had little leakage in the inflatable systems.

Photo credit: NASA

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The University of Wisconsin-Madison team goes to work assembling the mechanical structure for their inflatable loft at NASA's Johnson Space Center. Photo credit: NASA

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JSC personnel install the University of Wisconsin-Madison inflatable loft on the roof of the HDU. Photo credit: NASA

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The University of Wisconsin-Madison students field questions from the X-Hab competition judges. Photo credit: NASA

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The University of Wisconsin-Madison loft is deflated at the end of the competition week. Photo credit: NASA

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