AstroLynx: Wearable Safety System for Space Exploration

AstroLynx was built during a hackathon around the challenges of planetary exploration. Without GPS and immediate communication with Earth, small environmental hazards could quickly become serious emergencies.

Our goal was to build a wearable system that could recognize when an astronaut entered a dangerous state, locate the nearest safe teammate, and coordinate assistance between them.

The concept was intentionally futuristic and playful, but the prototype explored practical questions in human-centered design, safety-critical feedback, wearable hardware, and distributed sensing.

Localization was the largest scope decision. Full SLAM would have consumed most of the hackathon, so we accepted a rough relative position estimate based on heading and detected steps. It was less accurate, but sufficient to demonstrate the assistance workflow.

We also had to integrate several devices and communication paths while deciding where each sensor could be worn comfortably and still collect useful data. Reliable behavior during the live demo mattered more than adding another unfinished feature, so we kept interfaces and failure states simple.