Tide to Design First Laundry Detergent for Space, To Begin Stain Removal Testing on International Space Station in 2022
June 22 2021 - 9:00AM
Business Wire
The Procter & Gamble laundry brand
partners with NASA in a Space Act Agreement to explore how to
efficiently clean astronauts’ clothing in resource-constrained
environments, including the Artemis Moon missions and future Mars
missions.
Tide® has signed a Space Act Agreement with NASA to help in the
development of laundry detergent solutions and technology
development in space. Under the agreement, NASA may test and study
Tide cleaning solutions in space. The study could have potential
on-planet implications like innovative solutions for resource and
environmental challenges on Earth. Aligning with Tide’s decade-long
sustainability commitment, Ambition 2030, Tide will strive to bring
off-planet learnings back to everyday consumer products.
This press release features multimedia. View
the full release here:
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210622005280/en/
(Graphic: Business Wire)
Currently, astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS)
wear clothing several times before replacing with a new set.
Clothing is delivered to the station through resupply shipment
opportunities. The limited cargo capacity makes the practice of
replenishing the clothing supply challenging for deep space
missions, such as Artemis Moon missions and a crewed roundtrip Mars
mission. Without a laundry solution, 160 pounds of clothing per
crew member per year are launched to ISS. Human roundtrip missions
to Mars could be two to three years in length.
Major challenges for off-Earth laundering include ingredient
safety and compatibility with NASA life support systems, and the
limited amount of water available per wash load and the requirement
that the wash water be purified back to drinking-quality water. To
combat these challenges, Tide has developed a fully degradable
detergent, specifically designed for use in space to solve malodor,
cleanliness and stain removal problems for washable items used
during deep space missions, while being suitable for use in a
close-loop water system.
Onboard a 2022 cargo launch to the space station, “Mission
PGTide” (P&G Telescience Investigation of Detergent
Experiments), teams will test the stability of cleaning ingredients
under microgravity conditions and exposure to the radiation levels
experienced in space in partnership with the ISS U.S. National
Laboratory and SEOPS. In addition, the stain removal ingredients
and performance will be tested onboard the ISS through experiments
with Tide To Go Wipes and Tide To Go Pens.
"The ISS National Lab is excited to work with the P&G team
once again as they push the limits of their research and
development onboard the orbiting laboratory,” said Dr. Michael
Roberts, Acting Chief Scientist for the ISS National Lab. “Through
private-sector utilization of the space station, companies like
P&G can conduct investigations in ways not possible on Earth to
develop new consumer products, enhance existing products, and
better understand processes that further business models both on
the ground and in low Earth orbit. We look forward to this first
investigation of Tide in Space and hope that many more will soon
follow."
In addition to testing onboard the ISS National Lab, NASA and
Tide researchers may study how an innovative combined washing and
drying unit utilizing the special-formulated detergent could
potentially be integrated into planetary habitats that may be used
for the Artemis Moon and Mars missions under low-gravity surface
conditions. There are also a unique set of challenges that present
themselves for a crewed Mars mission. Future missions to and from
Mars expect to span multiple years, and these long-duration flights
will require laundry solutions designed for extreme space-based
environments and varying gravity conditions.
“This partnership was created to rethink cleaning solutions –
forcing us to rethink innovations for resource-constrained and
challenging environments like the ISS, deep space and even the
future of our home planet,” said Aga Orlik, Senior Vice President,
P&G North America Fabric Care. “We are eager to apply our
learnings from our partnerships with NASA and the ISS National Lab
to Tide on Earth, developing a low-resource-use laundry solution
for everyday use while meeting consumer demand for more sustainable
products.”
The news of Tide’s space exploration to innovate low-impact
laundry solutions comes on the heels of Tide’s Ambition 2030
commitments, announced earlier this spring. Included among Tide’s
Ambition commitments were actionable goals to find resource
efficiencies in energy, water and waste across the laundry
lifecycle – from manufacturing and packaging to consumer use phase
and end of life – to reduce the environmental impact of a load of
laundry while increasing the impact of clean clothes.
“Humanity has reached a pivotal point where on one hand, we’re
on the exciting cusp of space colonization, and on the other,
facing a critical period where action must be taken now to save the
planet we all call home,” said Orlik. “The collaboration with NASA
and the ISS National Lab are particularly exciting because it
allows us to push the bounds of resource efficiency to its absolute
limit, uncovering learnings with practical applications for both
the future of laundry in space and here on Earth.”
To check out more information on Tide’s overarching
sustainability ambitions, please see here.
About Procter &
Gamble
P&G serves consumers around the world with one of the
strongest portfolios of trusted, quality, leadership brands,
including Always®, Ambi Pur®, Ariel®, Bounty®, Charmin®, Crest®,
Dawn®, Downy®, Fairy®, Febreze®, Gain®, Gillette®, Head &
Shoulders®, Lenor®, Olay®, Oral-B®, Pampers®, Pantene®, SK-II®,
Tide®, Vicks®, and Whisper®. The P&G community includes
operations in approximately 70 countries worldwide. Please visit
http://www.pg.com for the latest news and information about P&G
and its brands. For other P&G news, visit us at
www.pg.com/news.
View source
version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210622005280/en/
Corinne Durieu: durieu.c@pg.com Abbigail Daez:
abbigail.daez@porternovelli.com
Procter and Gamble (NYSE:PG)
Historical Stock Chart
From Aug 2024 to Sep 2024
Procter and Gamble (NYSE:PG)
Historical Stock Chart
From Sep 2023 to Sep 2024