AstroAccess: tactile navigation for a more accessible cabin

Context

Mission: AstroAccess promotes disability inclusion in space exploration, paving the way for disabled astronauts in STEM by flying disabled scientists, veterans, students, athletes and artists on parabolic flights with the Zero Gravity Corporation, as the first step toward flying a diverse range of people to space.

The ambassadors experience weightlessness and carry out lunar gravity, Martian gravity and zero gravity observations and experiments, investigating how the physical environment aboard a spacecraft should change so that all explorers, regardless of disability on Earth, can live, work and thrive in space. They also use their platform as public advocates for disability access in STEM. The project is part of the SciAccess Initiative.

Stellar Amenities contributed, alongside other partners, to the historic Zero-G Flight 1 with its 12 disabled ambassadors. Our focus was navigation tools to aid blind and low vision users in wayfinding in weightlessness.

Research

After deep research we found that the navigational aids currently available were inadequate for navigating in zero gravity, given the difficulty of locating handles and reading braille in unknown orientations. So we took on the design of handles and tactile textiles that could offer the stability and environmental awareness to navigate by touch in any direction.

The research explored a diverse set of textiles with a wide range of tactile properties: unidirectionality, relief height, directional contrast, feature size, shape, spacing, frequency and proportion.

We acquired twelve samples in all: one origami tessellation, one faux viper skin, one set of artificial mohair skins, and nine embroidery samples, the fastest to prototype, carrying an array of tactile features at a constant relief height. No single sample would be ideal. The aim was to find which features, or combinations of features, deserved development into a high fidelity navigational surface.

Making these kinds of updates is not just about being inclusive but also about making flights safer for every astronaut. For example, when astronaut Chris Hadfield went temporarily blind during a spacewalk when cleaning solution squirted into his eye. Not only were the developments we are exploring unprecedented in navigational aid in general but that we needed to continue development and see their implementation in the world at large.Sina Bahram, founder of Prime Access Consulting

Steps forward

Feedback from Cady Coleman, the distinguished astronaut, and from three blind and low vision ambassadors, Sina Bahram, Azubuike (Zuby) Onwuta and Dr. Sheri Wells-Jensen, gave us a clear direction for further refinement.

We learned not only whether the textures were useful to the ambassadors, but that there is wider potential to make the world more inclusive using what the zero-g testing taught us. Combining Cady's experience navigating the space station with what Sina described about navigation aids brings us closer to a future where space is truly for everyone.

Now Mission: AstroAccess has plenty of new data to help suggest what kind of accessibility-related changes should be incorporated in future spacecraft. That might include directional fabrics on the walls, for instance, to help those with limited vision determine their orientation.The Verge, October 2021

Stellar Amenities continued with AstroAccess through a further zero-g flight in autumn 2022. The program has since flown more than five missions, worked with Blue Origin, and in December 2025 supported the first wheelchair user to fly to space.

Who was involved

Client. Mission: AstroAccess, Flight 1, 2021.

Team. Anastasia Prosina, Robert Salazar, Amanda Allen, Jan-Michael Rossman.

Deliverable. Directional navigation samples to assist future space explorers.