NASA asking people to design smartwatch app for astronauts

But it might be easier if instead of using a laptop or tablet, they had a good smartwatch app – or at least NASA thinks so.

We know that two Microsoft HoloLens AR headsets were on their way up to the ISS for use by technicians but now NASA wants to use smartwatches to help astronauts in their day-to-day space work. NASA is offering $1,500 for the watch app that would be the most useful to astronauts on space missions.

In a post on the Freelancer website, NASA says, “We (NASA) are concerned in the emerging world of smartwatch technology and are seeing to leverage this technology to create a smartwatch app that could be useful to astronauts”. What this means is that a graphic designer could enter and win the competition without any experience in coding apps, although that experience might be helpful in designing the interface. However, as NBC News counted, the real reward is “the honor of helping design an app for astronauts”. The hardware reference for the contest is the Samsung Gear 2, and the contest description notes that “innovative representations data displayed on a Smartwatch is highly encouraged”. There could also be an alert that shows what times of the day the astronaut can communicate with Earth on voice or video, and a Timers Application – basically an alarm, probably linking to the agenda timeline.

NTL stated that it requires designer to put all these functions in a single app. The designs should direct attention to the appropriate information for a task and increase efficiency, provide appropriate feedback to actions, be legible on the smaller Samsung Gear screen. Back in May, NASA announced its “Journey to Mars Challenge”, which solicited ideas for ways to keep the crew safe as they travelled to the Red Planet, while requiring limited resupply missions from Earth.

The “Astronaut Smartwatch App” will first be used by the robotic crew member “Robonaut 2” now helping the astronauts on the orbiting laboratory, Freelancer.com said in a statement.