NH Company's Clothing Tested in Space

German astronaut Alexander Gerst prepares for his mission on the International Space Station where among other duties he will test shirts featuring Coolcore. Photo courtesy of German Aerospace Center.

A payload just delivered to the International Space Station (ISS) by the Space-X Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon cargo capsule, included Coolcore t-shirts that will be used and tested by astronauts over the next six months.

Based in Portsmouth, Coolcore specializes in chemical-free thermo-regulating fabric. The comapny partnered with Germany’s Hohenstein Institute to develop the shirts designed to optimize astronauts’ comfort during exercise and everyday wear while.

“Space is one of the harshest environments known to man and to have our fabric selected to keep residents on the space station during their daily exercise comfortable is a testament to how well our fabrics perform,” says David Ludd, Coolcore’s VP of global marketing.

In a recent independent study that tested fabric’s cooling and drying power, Coolcore’s fabric received the best scores against seven leading brands and three competing technologies.

The Coolcore shirts on the International Space Station are part of the SPACETEX-2 project in the upcoming European Space Agency “Horizons Mission” developed by a research team of the Hohenstein Institute, the Charité Berlin and the German Aerospace Center.  German astronaut Alexander Gerst will be conducting dedicated exercise sessions to better understand the effects of weightlessness on perspiration, sweat evaporation and the resulting crew comfort.  Gerst, who spent 166 days on the ISS in 2014, will also be evaluating how Coolcore’s advanced fabric helps manage body heat build-up.

The data captured during the SPACETEX-2 experiments will help improve cooling fabrics for not only better thermal comfort in space, but also in extreme environments on earth.

Back on earth, Coolcore’s fabric technology is used by leading brands including Cabela’s, L.L. Bean, Gillz Performance Fishing, Athleta, Klim, Dickies, and more.