(Top)spin-offs
The Roland Garros Stadium is a complex accommodating the French Open, one of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments. You probably already knew that, but did you also know that it was named after a French pioneering aviator and legendary WWI fighter pilot? Today, the name is not the only link between this prestigious tournament and the aerospace sector.
Space technology is serving at the heart of the French Open. The showers at Roland Garros Stadium recycle their water to flush the locker room toilets thanks to a system originally developed by the European Space Agency (ESA) for astronauts on long-duration space missions. This water recycling technology owes its origins to the ESA-led Micro-Ecological Life Support System Alternative programme (MELiSSA), which for the last 30 years has been developing advanced life support and recycling systems for crewed space missions such as aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Self-sustaining closed-loop life support systems supply astronauts with all the oxygen, water and food they require. These systems will be crucial in the future for long term missions such as to the Moon and Mars. Meanwhile, numerous terrestrial spin-offs from MELiSSA technology already exist in areas ranging from food preparation to water purification and microbial safety. The same recycling system used by tennis players at Roland Garros has been operational for the last 15 years in the French/Italian Concordia research station located in remote Antarctica.
Water recycling system at the French Open
Space technology also had a significant impact on sports equipment such as tennis rackets. For decades NASA researchers worked to create metal alloys with amorphous structures, known as metallic glass. These ultra-strong alloys have twice the strength-to-weight ratio of titanium and the behaviour of a plastic, are resilient, wear- and corrosion-resistant, and easy to cast and mold. They have been used in sports equipment, electronics, smartphone cases, watches, coatings for industrial machinery and equipment, and more.
Head, a multinational sporting goods manufacturer which is best known for ski and tennis products, incorporated the revolutionary metal alloy into a new tennis racket line. It maximised the benefits of the alloy by applying it to four strategic areas of the Liquidmetal racket’s head. This allows all of the energy from ball impact to be used for a powerful return. What a player puts into his or her swing is exactly what they get out, no energy is lost on ball impact due to the racket’s liquid atomic structure. The Head Liquidmetal Radical, one of the first racket models featuring the alloy, was Andre Agassi’s weapon of choice back in 2003 when he ranked number one in the world. “The power and maneuverability of the Liquidmetal technology is unparalleled”, he stated. The Liquidmetal line of rackets have been smashing it ever since.
Furthermore, a NASA device designed for controlling vibration was also picked up by Head. The device was originally created for advanced aerodynamic control in airplanes and helicopters, controlling vibrations in deployable spacecraft structures, monitoring the health of launchpad structures, as well as for experiments in space and in solar sail technology, among other things. Nowadays, the vibration control technology improves the performance of skis, snowboards, baseball bats, hockey sticks, and yes you guessed it; tennis rackets!
The Macro-Fiber Composite is a thin electrode-filled self-powering, low-cost piezoelectric patch designed for controlling vibration, noise, and deflections in composite structural beams and panels. Its flat profile, and use as a sensor and an actuator, allows for use in critical or tight areas where other technologies with larger volumetric profiles cannot be used. It is designed to be readily integrated into a system as an add-on component or integrated during manufacture.
SpACE
Everywhere people go, sport follows. This is also the case in space where astronauts exercise about 2 hours per day aboard the ISS. But humans will go further. Sporting events may take place on other planets or moons in the future. A Lunar Open may still sound futuristic, but what if I told you that the first ever game of tennis in space already took place!
In 2018 four astronauts played a doubles tennis match aboard the ISS, using tiny rackets along with foam balls to ensure that no harm would come to any equipment on the space station. NASA astronauts Drew Feustel and Ricky Arnold, played against NASA astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor and European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst. The match was organised by the U.S. Open tennis organisation to inspire young tennis players to become interested in astronomy. Due to the zero-gravity environment, there were a few rule changes, including allowing astronauts to play from the walls, ceiling, or floor hitting balls over and under the net. The match was projected live onto an enormous globe in New York where a crowd of space and tennis enthusiasts gathered to watch the historic event.
Just like the closed-loop recycling system deployed at Roland Garros we have come full circle. You can now tell how tennis players on Earth make good use of innovations stemming from aerospace technology. Meanwhile, space tennis is no longer science fiction. It is only a matter of time before the first match on an extraterrestrial surface takes place. For the time being, zero-gravity versions of existing terrestrial sports are slowly taking shape aboard the ISS!
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