Nimbus 9000 tells astronauts whether it's a good day for a spacewalk. Spoiler: it is always -270°C with a chance of micrometeorites.
I led design end to end, from the first "wait, there's no weather in space" workshop to a shipped app that orbital crews now check religiously, mostly out of spite.
Crew members aboard Station Delta were opening Earth-based weather apps and getting confused about why it was "raining" when they looked out the window at the endless void. Morale suffered. Umbrellas were requisitioned.
Existing space weather tools were built for scientists — walls of solar flux data with no answer to the only question that matters: "Do I need my thick spacesuit or my REALLY thick spacesuit?"
"I just want to know if the sun is going to yell at us today."
We prototyped everything from a single giant "STILL A VACUUM" banner to a solar-flare mood ring. The winner treats space weather like a personality: today the sun is "grumpy," the radiation belt is "clingy," and the debris field is "unavailable."
Solar activity translated into one emoji and a supportive sentence. Crews report actually reading it.
A single dial from "go stretch your legs" to "absolutely not, the sun is furious."
Turns debris tracking into a game. HR had concerns. Engagement tripled.
We spent three sprints assuming the crew were our only users. Turns out the station AI had opinions about the color palette and, frankly, some of them were correct.