NASA
engineers are conducting underwater tests of a new space suit, as the agency
prepares for ambitious manned missions to the Moon, Mars, and an asteroid. The
suit was redesigned from the “pumpkin” outfit used in shuttle missions.
The
modified suit will allow more mobility for future astronauts and will also
allow for more space in the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, which is being
built to become America’s next manned spacecraft.
NASA
has been eyeing to equip Orion’s crew with something less bulky than the usual
space suits.
Due to
its size and movement limitations, the so-called Extravehicular Mobility Unit -
worn by astronauts during spacewalks on the International Space Station (ISS) -
was seen unfit for deep space missions. Given that the Orion crew module has
just 8.9 cubic meters of space for four to six people on board, NASA thought
the pumpkin-orange Advanced Crew Escape System (ACES) used by space shuttle
astronauts could be more suitable for the job.
An
upgraded version of the suit has been designed, and is being tested in the
Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory near the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
To imitate all the possible mission scenarios, the lab has been using a giant
pool with mock installations, including full-scale models of the ISS.
NASA has released a video showing
how the underwater tests are done. The agency also used computer graphics to
show what the actual asteroid mining mission could look like.
Dustin Gohmert, crew survival systems manager at Johnson, says
that while the shell of the suit looks“very
much the same” as the
orange suit used by shuttle astronauts, its inside has been overhauled.
Here is the link of the released NASA Video
“We’re stepping back to our heritage to be able to use one suit
for multiple tasks,” Gohmert
said, referring to the long-running history of the pumpkin-orange suit, which
evolved from the early NASA spacesuit worn by the first US astronaut who
ventured outside a spaceship in 1965.
