Space Center Houston awarded a local Clear Creek ISD student from the nationwide design competition with NASA, the HERA Patch Challenge.
Freshman Baylee Barnwell from Clear Creek High School was the final design selection for the Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA) Campaign 7 Patch Challenge, a competition for the design emblem worn by NASA support staff and crewmembers simulating living and working on Mars.
Each HERA campaign consists of four rotating volunteer crewmembers simulating long-duration spaceflight missions on a Mars habitat at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX. The 45-day missions in the ground-based habitat study the confined living environments of crewmembers and identify risk categories on how individuals and teams perform, interact, and maintain health during extended periods of isolation in a small volume with little privacy and variable workloads.
Barnwell’s design patch encapsulated the campaign’s mission aims of crew autonomy, behavioral health, teamwork and multicultural factors. As the winner of the HERA Patch Challenge for Campaign 7, Barnwell enjoyed a private tour of the HERA facility with her family and where her patch is currently displayed.
