NASA To Test Spacesuit Designs

Aviation Week and Space Technology ^ | 1/11/2010 | Frank Morring, Jr.

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

Engineers at Johnson Space Center (JSC) have scheduled four days of testing with three different versions of NASA’s planned new spacesuit to begin melding the suit with the Orion crew exploration vehicle that is also under development there.

Astronauts and engineers will don the prototype Constellation suits to compare their utility for a number of tasks in a mockup of the latest configuration of the Orion crew cabin. Scheduled for testing are a prototype built by David Clark Co., Inc., for Oceaneering, the prime contractor for the new spacesuit. A separate suit built by ILC Dover, another Oceaneering subcontractor, also will be tested, as will one built in-house at JSC.

“This is the first test that our prime contractor is leading,” said Nicole Jordan, a Constellation spacesuit engineer at JSC. “We’re putting three suits into the mockup that are close to what we think the new suit is going to look like.”

In the past, test subjects have worn shuttle spacesuits to fit-check the Orion mockups. The two contractor suits will be pressurized for the first time during the tests to give engineers an idea of how they will perform when stiffened by the internal pressure.

The modular Constellation suit consists of a “soft” suit that the crew will wear during launch and reentry and when the cabin is depressurized for whatever reason, including the need to conduct an extravehicular activity (EVA). A second, “hard” element for eventual lunar excursions will mate arms, legs and perhaps the boots and helmets from the “configuration 1” ascent and entry suit with a hard “configuration 2” torso equipped with life support and batteries.

[Jeff Chandler]

New Space Suit Design

[irishtenor]

Must be the “soft” suit.