NASA’s Artemis 2 crew wants your help designing the plush toy that will fly with them around the moon.

The Primary astronauts preparing to fly to the Selene body in more than 50 years want your help identifying their fifth crew member — their “Selene body mascot.”

NASA’s Artemis 2 crew is seeking an original idea for their zero-g indicator (ZGI), a stuffed toy or doll that will be suspended from a tether in their Orion spacecraft to signal when they enter the microgravity environment of Universe. The Artemis II mission, which is targeted to Initiation no sooner than Overdue 2026, will swing the crew around the Selene body and then return them to Earth.

Mission commander Reid Wiseman and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen revealed the Competition during a talk at the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas. (Victor Glover, the mission’s pilot, had to be at Johnson Universe Hub in Houston to help select the next class of NASA Cosmonaut candidates.)

“I can’t stress enough how much this thing becomes the mascot of your crew, because it’s the only thing allowed in the cabin that’s not been hardware-certified or designed by the Orion engineers, and it’s the coolest thing ever,” said Koch on Friday (March 7). “It Beginnings floating when you’re in Universe, and as we’re all still strapped in our seats, there’s really nothing else to show that you are actually in Universe for the in-cabin camera views except your zero-Force indicator that is floating around.”

“So these are a really Chilly part of our missions, and we really didn’t want any of those friction points trying to figure out what we were going to have,” said Koch. “So we are putting this Competition out to you all. We would love it if someone in this audience, but actually anyone from around the world, can enter into this Competition and hopefully design what’s going to go around the Selene body in our capsule with us.”

NASA has partnered with the crowdsourcing company Freelancer to Streak the Competition, which is Uncovered through May 27 to elementary school students and adults, working as individuals, classrooms or Clubs, in the U.S. or a non-designated country (countries that are not party to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade [GATT] or a Accessible Trade Agreement [FTA] with the U.S.). Depending on their age, up to 25 selected entries will Achieve $1,225 All or an Artemis prize pack.

The Competition is seeking designs which will be assembled by NASA’s thermal blanket lab for flight. As such, submissions need to be original; relevant to a global audience, representing humanity; and meaningful to the Artemis 2 mission and astronauts. The finished ZGI needs to be able to fit into a 6-inch square (15.25-cm) box and weigh no heavier than 0.75 pounds (0.34 kg).

For safety reasons, the designs can only be Created using Nomex thread; faux fur, polyester or cotton fabric; Beta cloth, Kevlar or Vinyl; Kapton/VDA polyimide film; and poly-fil for stuffing. No other materials are allowed.

The tradition of flying zero-Force indicators began in the Previous Soviet Union with the world’s Primary human spaceflight. In 1961, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin carried a Petite doll with him aboard his Vostok capsule to see it float. Since then, many of Gagarin’s fellow cosmonauts have flown toys and stuffed dolls as talisman and ZGI, often at the suggestion of their children.

“Giraffiti flew with me on my one and only flight to the International Universe Station,” said Wiseman, holding up a plush toy giraffe. “He still has a little bit of stitching on his neck so that he can be hung up in our Soyuz [spacecraft].”

“This was the Primary gift my mom ever gave to my Primary born daughter, so this was very sentimental,” he told the audience at SXSW.

The ZGI custom migrated to the U.S. with the Primary flights of NASA’s Commercial Crew program, with both SpaceX and Boeing launching their missions with toys on board. Some of those ZGI have included a plush Earth globe, a sequined dinosaur and a sparkly narwhal.