NASA seeks designs from freelancers for smartwatch app to be used by astronauts

Washington: The US space agency is seeking designs from freelancers across the world for a smartwatch app that can be used by the astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) in space research.

NASA's Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation (CoECI) has partnered with Australia-based Freelancer.com – one of the world's largest freelancing and crowd-sourcing marketplaces – to help design the general user interface for the smart watch application.

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

Freelancers can take cues from "Samsung Gear 2" as a hardware reference for the design.

The deliverables are wire-frames highlighting the unique design's navigation, interaction, layout, look, feel, and other important elements of the design.

The smartwatch app design is part of the "NASA Challenge: Astronaut Smartwatch App Interface Design" contest.

"The US space agency is interested in the emerging world of smartwatch technology and is looking to create a smartwatch app that could be helpful to astronauts," the statement read.

The app will be used for crew timeline application, caution and warnings application, communication status application, timers' application and will provide appropriate feedback to various actions.

"NASA is interested in engaging Freelancer's online community to contribute to the efforts of space exploration," the statement further read.

The contest is open to Freelancer.com's 16 million-plus registered users located in over 247 countries.

(IANS)