Uptimai, a company founded by Institute of Aerospace Engineering alumni, has made it to the finals of the Humans In Space Challenge 2023. From Monday to Wednesday, they will have the opportunity to present their technology to a panel of judges from the space business and representatives from top universities in Las Vegas for the ASCEND 2023 Symposium. Experts from FME are also collaborating on the development of the ICARUS ARMOR technology.
"Jan Fišer from the Energy Institute is working with me on the project on behalf of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. Our main task is testing people in the Climate chamber," explained FME researcher Vratislav Šálený, who is also the Space Coordinator for the entire BUT. It is the climate chamber that is to play a key role in the development of the ICARUS ARMOR technology aimed at measuring stress in humans in extreme outdoor conditions.
"In the future, we can expect people who have not undergone years of special training to fly into space. Their stress load may be much higher as a result. We are specifically looking at heat stress and how the body deals with it," Adam Trčka from Uptimai explained to the judges in the pre-final round in a streamcast attended by all the finalists. The company is not only targeting astronauts with its technology, but also terrestrial users in demanding professions: doctors, firefighters, pilots and nurses just to list a few .
| Heat stress is a condition where the body is unable to cool itself properly, so its temperature continually rises to dangerous levels and key organs can collapse. |
The founders of Uptimai are Martin Kubíček and Tomáš Koutník, graduates of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the Institute of Aerospace Engineering, who developed their platform in the ESA BIC Prague space project incubator.
More about Humans In Space Challenge 2023 here.