Moon Mascot – NASA Artemis II ZGI Design Challenge

Will you design the zero gravity indicator (ZGI) that accompanies the Artemis II mission around the Moon? If your design is one of the most compelling and resonates with the global community and the Artemis II astronauts, your design might fly into space aboard the Orion spacecraft and you could win US$1225.

Zero gravity indicators are small items carried aboard spacecraft that provide a visual indicator for when a spacecraft has reached the weightlessness of microgravity. A plush Snoopy doll was the ZGI for the Artemis I mission. For that uncrewed mission, Snoopy floated around, tethered inside the vehicle to indicate when the Orion spacecraft had reached space.

For this Challenge, we’re asking creatives from all over the world to design a new ZGI to be fabricated by NASA’s Thermal Blanket Lab and launched into space aboard the Artemis II mission.

With Artemis, NASA will explore more of the Moon than ever before, learn how to live and work farther away from home, and prepare for future human exploration of Mars.

Artemis II is targeted to launch in early 2026 and will be the first test flight of the Space Launch System rocket and the Orion spacecraft with humans aboard. Lasting about 10 days, the mission will launch four astronauts from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to fly around the Moon before safely returning to Earth. The mission is a crucial step toward the Artemis III Moon landing mission in 2027.

NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, will be joined by another important crewmember in space: the ZGI aboard the Artemis II mission!

Watch Artemis II to the Moon: Launch to Splashdown to learn more about this mission.

The ZGI for the Artemis II mission will be an original stuffed toy (“plushie”) that will join the Artemis II crew inside of the Orion spacecraft for their journey around the Moon.

Check out the “How to Know You’re in Space: Zero Gravity Indicators” video below to learn more about what ZGI is!

The Artemis II crew and the ZGI will travel around the Moon in the Orion spacecraft. The spacecraft will provide the astronauts with food, water, and oxygen and protect them from hazards like space radiation.

Size and weight are limited inside the spacecraft. Everything that will be launched inside Orion must be weighed and measured prior to launch to ensure it fits. Each object going in to the crew module is assigned a size and weight limit.

On Artemis II, the ZGI has been assigned a limit of 6 inches (15.24 cm) in any dimension, meaning it must fit within a 6” x 6” x 6” (15.25 cm3) box. The weight limit is 0.75 lb. (0.34 kg). While you won’t have to calculate the final weight or size of your design, you will need to make sure that you plan your design so that the final manufactured ZGI will be able to meet the requirements.

When the Thermal Blanket Lab technicians build the flight design for the mission, they will be limited in what materials they can use. Use this list of materials to inform your design. Refer to the Fabric Description document for more information.