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NASA’s need for textiles in an oxygen-rich spacecraft

In the Industry | November 10, 2026 | By: Janet Preus

White acoustic panel with gray edges and grommets, resting on a dark surface with various NASA logos and materials in the background.
Acoustic panels made with nonwovens help absorb the noise inside a NASA spacecraft. Every textile used in the Artemis missions must meet fire safety standards for an elevated oxygen environment. Photo: Janet Preus. 

NASA needs textile products, and we’re all aware that NASA’s criteria can be extremely demanding. With upcoming manned missions, that need is becoming urgent. In her ET Conference presentation at ATA’s Expo in Orlando, “Custom textile development for space vehicles with elevated oxygen environments,” Wendy Gao outlined this specific need for the textile industry. Gao is the Textile Materials Lead, NASA Johnson Space Center Engineering, Technology, and Science (JETS) II contract. 

The Artemis missions are planning elevated oxygen cabin environments (>30% O2). Among other purposes, an oxygen enriched cabin maximizes the duration of extra-vehicular activities (EVAs). The proposed Artemis IV+ atmosphere is 8.2 psia and will test at 37% O2 for contingency. However, this “greatly increases the flammability risk.”

NASA has experience with high oxygen environments, but those materials are either no longer available, or they may no longer be compliant. She noted, too, that “textiles are being widely used in the spacecraft.” Types of textile products needed will include knits for some clothing; wovens for certain bags, acoustic blankets from nonwovens, webbing, zippers, hook & loop as temporary fasteners, and bungees for cargo restraints.

Even sewing thread must comply, as “Sewing thread can actually be the propagation of the fire,” she says. 

NASA has a three-phase system for identifying textiles or textile products that could meet their specific criteria:

  1. Commercial off-the shelf (COTS), but there are very limited COTS textiles that can be certified in this specific oxygen-rich environment. 
  2. Incremental improvement of COTS solutions
  3. Custom textile development

After contacted more than 100 textile manufacturers in the U.S., and visiting many manufacturing plants, there are still 22 textiles on the list that need to be new. 

All of the textiles considered will follow NASA’S rigid testing methodology. The critical priority is to “buy down flammability risk” to create “safer and more sustainable human exploration missions.”

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