Undergrad team creates tool to repair International Space Station

The International Space Station wears multiple layers of specially designed thermal and impact-protective material. Although repairs kits exist to fix leaks and rips by astronauts during an extravehicular activity, there isn’t a tool to securely attach two pieces of space fabric to cover a junction. A team of 17 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign undergraduate students took on the challenge. They designed, fabricated and tested a new tool for the specific EVA fabric repair task.

The team submitted a paper describing their Fabric ANchoring Gadget and were invited to present it at AIAA’s Region III Student Conference in Cincinnati. It received a third-place award for the undergraduate paper category.

Roughly speaking, the Fabric ANchoring Gadget is like a staple gun. The gadget makes two pilot holes with sharpened stainless-steel rods, and the clip goes into the fabric. But, unlike a staple gun, the clip doesn’t join in the back.

“The clip is shaped like a pair of angle brackets connected at the bottom. The fabric rests in the two vertices of the clip,” Zabiegaj said. “The angles do a really good job of constricting the fabric. We used it on two sheets of thick paper. After we fastened it, we shook the two papers, and it did a good job of keeping it fixed in place.”

Throughout the process, Zabiegaj said the astronaut’s safety and the functionality of the gadget were primary concerns.

“There are movements that are difficult to perform in space, due to the restricted motion in the space suit. So instead of having handles in a circular shape, we designed them to be flat and long. It’s a lot easier to grip your hand around it and the astronaut wouldn’t need to squeeze anything. The main handle was more of a push and rotate movement,” she said. “In the testing, I used the gadget with my eyes closed, wearing huge welding gloves to simulate its use in space. I kept getting poked by the fangs, so we designed a rotating box to cover the fangs, making it safer to use."

The main body was 3D printed using polylactic acid. For the clips, the team eventually found a specific brand of PLA filament that was elastic enough to bend and return to its previous shape.

The project originated as a response to one of NASA’s Micro-g NExT challenges. When their proposal wasn’t selected to be texted in the Neutral Buoyancy Pool, the team quickly decided not to wallow in disappointment but to pivot.

“We still believed we had something worth exploring and wanted to complete the tool,” Zabiegaj said. “Aakash Shah, the tech manager for Illinois Space Society, recommended that we submit a paper to AIAA, so we did.”

The team’s advisor was Mickey Clemon in the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering.

“We met with him twice,” Zabiegaj said. “He gave us tips on how to make the tool more ergonomic and user-friendly and introduced us to a bi-stable, or two-step, mechanism, which is better in terms of safety.”

The team of 17 students came from a variety of disciplines. Seven students were from aerospace engineering, but the others were from data science, astronomy, astrophysics, mechanical engineering, physics, electrical engineering and engineering undeclared.

“It was nice having different perspectives to work on the tool, but also for researching what we could and couldn't do. We had to justify what we were doing.”

Zabiegaj said, although the team was large, they all met together almost every week.

“I held a lot of office hour sessions where we could work both independently and with each other. Our like main team manager was Zoe Surles. We had two design leads, me and Denver Haslett. Our communications lead was Saanvi Kunisetty, and Lillian Hunt was the testing lead. But honestly, I feel like the titles didn't matter by the end of it. We were all just doing a lot of work.”

Asked if the team ever hit a wall during the process, Zabiegaj said, “Oh, lots of walls were hit. The original prompt we used from NASA was difficult to interpret, while also considering safety requirements. There was a lot of back and forth with a lot of things going wrong and learning how to deal with it. The whole year gave us a lot of experience.”

The paper, “Design and Manufacturing of Fabric ANchoring Gadget for Fabric Repair on the International Space Station,” was written by aerospace students Lillian Hunt, Gabriela Zabiegaj, Denver Haslett, Emma Held, Alana Falter, Tiana Foreman and Parker Lenkaitis. DOI: 10.2514/6.2025-100003

Contributors from other disciplines are Zoe Surles and Saanvi Kunisetty, data science and astronomy; Tarenpreet Singh, astrophysics; Andrew Jace Bernardo and Kate Pactol, mechanical engineering; Ryan Smith, physics; Julia Kalil, electrical engineering; and Casimir Pawlowski and Jennifer Ren, engineering undeclared.

Hunt added that the paper at AIAA was about a prototype of the tool. The team came back from the conference wanting to incorporate some improvements based on feedback they received.

“There was one more final iteration of the tool. differentiated by its X-Acto blade ‘fangs,’ a clear acrylic top, embedded magnets in the floor of the tool, and clips fit with magnetic tape for storage.”

The team is part of the Illinois Space Society at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, comprised of undergraduate students with a focus on hands-on technical development.